IAED 410 Environmental Psychology

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IAED 410Environmental Psychology

• Asst.Prof.Dr. Deniz Hasirci
• Spring 2009-2010

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Three Orders in Looking at the Environment -
Three Orders - Perception - Gestalt -
Cognition - Cognitive maps
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Three Orders in Looking at the Environment

• Lets be botanists.
• Not florists categorize according to color,
  fragrance.
• Not farmers rank according to marketability.
• Thus Three Orders

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• PHYSICAL ORDER (FORM)
• TERRITORIAL ORDER (PLACE)
• CULTURAL ORDER (UNDERSTANDING)

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Environmental Perception and Cognition

• Environmental Perception
• Gestalt
• Environmental Cognition
• (operational)
• Cognitive Maps
• Wayfinding

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1. Environmental Perception

• Process for gathering information about the world
  (source of affective responses).
• OBJECT PERCEPTION
• Simple stimuli
• Brightness
• Color
• Depth
• Perceptual constancy
• Form
• Movement

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• Perception-in-action
• Perceiver is part of the scene.
• Moving involves multiple perspectives.
• Perceiver is connected by clear goal.

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• Gestalt Psychology
• The whole is more than the sum of its parts.
• Laws of organization (how the brain operates)
• Gestalt form, unified whole,
  configuration.
• Gestalt psychologists developed five laws that
  govern human perception

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• 1. Law of Proximity

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• 2. Law of Similarity

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• 3. Law of Good Continuation

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• 4. Law of Closure

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• 5. Law of Prägnanz (good form)

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• 6. Law of Figure/Ground

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2. Environmental Cognition

• The process of thought that leads to knowing
• The psychological result of perception, learning,
  recognizing, reasoning.
• Refers to the mental functions and processes
  (thoughts).
• How we acquire, store, organize, recall
  information about locations, distances, and
  arrangements in spaces.
• http//www.vimeo.com/404183
• http//vimeo.com/7284425

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What is your image of the city?
Kevin Lynchs Image of the City

• How might our understanding of how people develop
  mental images of the environment help us design
  spaces better fitted to users needs?
• Environmental cognition can contribute to
  practical environmental design.

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Why Legibility?

• Aids navigation
• Guides social interaction
• Prevents feeling lost
• Helps make the environment feel like home
• Some environments are more legible than others

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Features of Cognitive Maps

• Lynch (1960)
• Five important elements (of legibility) in mental
  maps of cities
• Path distinctive thread that gives direction.
• Edge the boundary between two areas.
• Node important pathways come together,
  activity.
• District medium/large area with a common
  identity.
• Landmark reference point that stands out due to
  shape, height, color, or historic importance.

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• Path

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• Edge

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• Node

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• District

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• Landmark

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• See you next week!

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LAST WEEKEnvironmental Perception and Cognition

• Environmental Perception
• Gestalt
• Environmental Cognition
• (operational)
• Cognitive Maps
• Legibility
• Wayfinding

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Wayfinding

• Wayfinding an internal psychological process,
  sequence of problem-solving activities.
• The process by which we navigate in our
  environment.
• Newcomers to an environment experience the
  stressful feeling of being lost ? learned
  process.

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• Effects of Signage and Floor Plan Configuration
  on Wayfinding Accuracy (Environment and
  Behavior, Vol. 23, No. 5, 553-574 (1991).
• Michael J. O'Neill Interior Environments Pgm,
  Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison
• This study examines the influence of floor plan
  complexity and several types of signage on
  wayfinding within a series of buildings on a
  university campus. The study used a 5 x 3
  factorial experimental design.
• The first factor, complexity of floor plan
  configuration, is defined through five
  alternatives. The second factor, signage, has
  three conditions no signage, textual signage, or
  graphic signage.
• The results show that as floor plan complexity
  increases, wayfinding performance decreases.
  Graphic signage produced the greatest rate of
  travel in all settings, but textual signage was
  the most effective in reducing wayfinding errors,
  such as wrong turns and backtracking. Overall,
  the addition of signage resulted in a 13
  increase in rate of travel, a 50 decrease in
  wrong turns, and a 62 decrease in backtracking
  across the five settings. However, plan
  configuration was found to exert a significant
  influence regardless of signage, because the
  wayfinding performance of participants with
  access to signage in the most complex settings
  remained equivalent to, or significantly poorer
  than, those in the simplest settings with no
  signage.
• EDRA, INFORMAWORLD, DESIGN SHARE, NSCU-UD

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THIS WEEK

• 1. Perceiving Configurations
• Live Configurations
• Control vs. Ownership
• Control Games
• Overlap of Form and Territory
• 2. Basic Theories of Environment and Behavior

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• Does control mean ownership?
• Borrowed furniture, equipment, spaces?
• Environmental game
• Watch the game
• Observe live configurations
• Deduce rules
• Not to ask agents what, but why and how.

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• Public Spaces Overlap of Form and Territory
• Manipulation of public space
• Claiming territory through use of space

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• Zaha Hadid Burnham Pavilion, Chicago
• http//vimeo.com/6937796
• http//vimeo.com/6937292

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Ethics/Values and Attitudes

• Ethics/Values
• Attitudes
• Behavior

Environmental Effects
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Arousing
Russell and Lanius Affective Quality of Places
Upleasant
Pleasant
Not Arousing
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Kaplan and Kaplan Preference Model (Remember
Lynchs Spatial Descriptors!)

• Coherence making sense (an understandable
  context)
• Legibility the promise of making sense (for the
  person)
• Complexity involvement, number and variety of
  elements within a scene
• Mystery the promise of involvement

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• Coherence ease of organizing and structuring
  parts, units, chunks, blocks or scene elements.
• Patterns that result from many similar and
  repeating parts allow for easier human
  comprehension (similarity/proximity).

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• 2. Legibility is found in an environment that
  looks as if one could explore extensively without
  getting lost.
• Undifferentiated sameness causes low legibility.

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• 3. Complexity a reflection of whether there is
  enough present in the scene to keep one mentally
  occupied.
• Too little is boring, too much is overwhelming.

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• 4. Mystery occurs when a scene provides partial
  information about what lies ahead, inviting
  exploration.
• Things are obscured in such a way as to reveal
  their presence but not their full identity.

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• See you next week!