Some of the results were predictable. When planted in front of the
Whole Foods store, my participants stood awkwardly, casting around
for something of interest to latch onto and to talk about. They assessed
their emotional state as being on the wrong side of “happy” and their
state of arousal was as close to bottoming out as I saw at any of the sites on the walk. The physiological instruments strapped to their arms
showed a similar pattern. These people were bored and unhappy. When
asked to describe the site using words and phrases, utterances such as
bland, monotonous, passionless rose to the top of the charts.