1,720,970 research outputs found
The Downside of Building Up: An Exploration into the Psychological and Physiological Impacts of Exposure to High-Rise Buildings
Get PDFCities are densifying at a rapid rate and, accordingly, are constructing high-rise buildings to accommodate more people. The aim of this dissertation was to quantify the physiological and psychological impacts of being in the presence of high-rise buildings. Study 1, which used computer-generated environments and immersive virtual reality, demonstrated that environments populated by high-rise buildings were rated as more oppressive and less open than environments populated by low-rise buildings. In Study 2a, using similar measures, the effects of high-rise buildings a real-world setting in Central London were examined, finding that people rated the high-rise building to be less open and rated themselves to be less happy when exposed to them, as compared to being exposed to the low-rise building. In Study 2b, 360-degree video of the same setting was used in Study 2a and which participants were exposed to using a head mounted device. Participants rated the high-rise building environment to be less open, less friendly and rated themselves to feel less happy and have less sense of control, as compared to low-rise buildings. In Study 3, 360-degree photos were used to examine the effect of distance from high-rise buildings on valence, arousal, sense of control, and openness ratings. Results from Study 3b indicated people were happier, calmer and had a greater sense of control, the further they were from the high-rise. Study 4 examined how exposure to multiple high-rise buildings affected electrodermal activity and valence, arousal, sense of control, and openness. Exposure to high-rise buildings yielded higher electrodermal activity. Taken together, these experiments suggest that exposure to high-rise buildings can have a negative impact on cognition, affect, and physiology. Furthermore, these experiments provide an array of methodologies that can be used to understand the psychological impacts of urban design, a topic which warrants further inquiry as our world continues to urbanize
Awe-Inducing Interior Space: Architectural Causes and Cognitive Effects
No full textThe purpose of the present work was to investigate whether religious monumental architecture facilitates religious feeling by inducing a sense of awe. In order to elucidate how church interiors elicit awe and otherwise shape affective and cognitive processes, we developed a rating scale for the measurement of physical properties of interior spaces in order to determine which architectural properties in an interior space can predict a sense of awe (Experiment 1). By having participants rate affective response to a set of images pre-rated on architectural properties, we were able to establish a predictive relationship between architectural properties and elicited emotion. Properties reflecting immensity and adornment significantly predicted a feeling of awe. The results from Experiment 1 guided the selection of stimuli for Experiment 2, in which we explored the effects of visually priming participants with photographs of high and low awe-inducing architectural interiors on time perception and spirituality, as well as the effects of priming participants with photographs of religious and non-religious building interiors on participant religiousness. Feeling awe led to a greater overestimation of time in a time-estimation task, and religious priming through photographs of church interiors rated low in properties of immensity and adornment led to an increase in religious feeling. This work establishes an initial understanding of cognitive processes underlying affective and social responses to the environmental cues of church interiors
COVID-19 Risk Perception in Urban and Architectural Environments
Get PDFThe COVID-19 pandemic presented a profound challenge for cities. Cities are designed to maximize the benefits of density, yet this same density becomes a liability during an outbreak of a socially communicable infection. How did members of the general public perceive COVID-19 transmission risk in the urban and architectural environments they live in? And what effect do these perceptions have on pandemic-safe behaviours? The aim of this dissertation was to answer these questions using the methodologies of research psychology. Across five experiments, it was demonstrated that members of the general public hold complex perceptions of COVID-19 risk in urban and architectural environments, and utilize different visible and non-visible features to render judgments about risk. Moreover, risk perception consistently held a significant positive relationship with the likelihood to engage in pandemic-safe behaviours. These results provide insight on the subjective experience of citizens during the COVID-19 pandemic, and offer designers and policymakers information about human behaviour and psychology during this time of crisis. The results from these investigations are summarized in the form of design and policy insights so that designers can create spaces that are perceived as safe, and so that public policymakers can create more nuanced public health policy interventions that leverage the intrinsic motivation of citizens to protect themselves against the risk of infection. Given the inevitability of future pathogen outbreaks, the results from this dissertation stand to make a meaningful contribution to the fight to keep citizens safe during these times of crisis
Emotions and the Environment: The Variable Effect of Environmental Complexity on Pleasure and Interest
Get PDFThis dissertation establishes a more comprehensive examination of the often discussed environmental complexity effect on emotional response by addressing four specific considerations. First, positive emotional response was considered as composed of many distinct emotions, thus interest was gauged alongside the commonly explored emotion of pleasure. Second, a systematic approach to quantifying environmental complexity was developed where the environment possessed complexity through either the diversity or numerosity of its geometric and featural elements. Third, a cognitive component was introduced to the formation of emotional response, where the bottom-up effect of environmental properties is mediated by subjective, perceived complexity. Fourth, by arguing that emotions are functional, the degree of agreement between subjective emotional responses and navigation behaviour was examined. In Experiments 1.1 and 1.2, complexity was generated by manipulating the numerosity of featural and geometric elements of virtual environments. In Experiments 2.1 and 2.2 complexity was generated by manipulating diversity of featural elements and quantified using information entropy, while Experiment 3.0 employed a similar approach but with real-world environments. Participants rated complexity, interest and pleasure in every experiment, while Experiments 2.1 and 2.2 introduced a virtual reality navigation task and Experiment 3.0 measured behavioural intention using approach-avoidance ratings. Results demonstrated that environmental complexity had a dissociable effect on pleasure and interest; where the effect was positive on interest it was negative on pleasure. Regardless of whether it affected pleasure or interest, the direct effect of environmental complexity on emotion was either partially or fully mediated by perceived complexity. Environmental complexity itself was successfully manipulated using diversity and numerosity of both featural and geometric elements of the environment. Finally, there was a consistent relationship between feelings of displeasure and avoidance behaviour. These novel perspectives suggest that environmental complexity has a variable effect on emotional response, where the exact relationship is dependent both on the emotion probed and factors beyond complexity such as the processing dynamics of environmental features. By arguing for a more nuanced and exhaustive examination of emotional response, this dissertation repositions the research to better assist in the design of more effective, people-centred, built environments
Moving On Up: Investigating the Embodied Metaphor of Verticality and its Effect on Overconfidence
Get PDFAs investment in Virtual Reality (VR) continues, we sought to better understand the unique value proposition this technology has to offer by testing the impact of a virtually embodied metaphor on self-evaluation. In both experiments, participants completed multiple trivia rounds after experiencing different levels of verticality. We investigated whether the embodied metaphor of UP = better would then affect their overconfidence, measured as the difference between how well they estimated their own performance to be and how well they actually scored. In Experiment 1, we compared this effect between three different mediums: mental imagery, video, and VR, hypothesizing that the ascending VR condition would yield greater overconfidence scores. We speculated that VR, by engaging the body to a greater extent than the other two mediums, provides a mechanism through which the full effect of an embodied metaphor can activate. Our results did not support this hypothesis: we found no statistically significant difference in overconfidence scores between mediums in Experiment 1. However, Experiment 1 results did support our predictions that people perceive themselves to be more embodied in VR than they would be watching a video or imagining a scene. In a follow-up study with only mental imagery, Experiment 2, we found no main effect for contextual cues given during the experiment. There was a significant difference between ascending and descending conditions, however, counter to what we predicted: participants had higher overconfidence scores in the descending conditions. We discuss issues in the field of embodied metaphor research and suggest alternative routes for investigating metaphors in VR. In light of the growing interest in employing VR as a research tool, we discuss Experiment 1 methodologies, highlighting the advantages and disadvantages of conducting experimental research in VR
Identifying the function of peripheral vision in early and late scene processing
Get PDFThe vast majority of visual information is located in the peripheral visual field. Our understanding of the functionality of peripheral vision is limited. This thesis investigates the function of peripheral vision during scene viewing and contrasts its role with that of the central visual field. We first establish that peripheral vision is sufficient for affective impressions of stimuli presented for brief periods of time (Experiment 1). In that study, participants perceive natural scenes presented in the peripheral vision field for as little as 50 ms to be more pleasant and interesting than urban scenes. We also contrast performance on evaluating scene gist and forming affective impressions during peripheral presentation of scenes and find that with a peripheral scene presentation of 50 ms, performance in identifying scene gist is reliably above chance. In a follow-up study, we contrast performance on scene gist between central and peripheral vision by simultaneously presenting conflicting scenes to the two visual fields. Participants were likely to rely on peripheral information to rapidly identify scene gist. In our third study, we contrast eye movements during scene viewing limited to the central, peripheral, or full visual field. We compare whether central and peripheral vision are associated with focal or ambient visual processes. Focal vision involves detailed processing of specific features in the environment, while ambient vision processes the locations of stimuli, detecting movement, and facilitating navigation (Trevarthen, 1968). We find that central vision primarily involves focal eye movements, while peripheral vision primarily involves ambient eye movements but also has a role in focal processing during late scene viewing. This work establishes that peripheral vision plays a substantial role in early and late affective processing of scenes
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Investigating positive and threat-based awe in natural and built environments
Get PDFStaggeringly immense or beautiful awe-inspiring structures, such as religious monumental architecture, have long been important to human culture and society. With the emerging psychological literature on awe, a nascent avenue of research is beginning to uncover specific psychosocial and physiological effects of feeling awe through architecture. Most psychological work relies on nature imagery to evoke awe; yet architecturally-induced awe, which is studied very little, has enormous implications for how awe-eliciting architecture—such as cultural and religious sites—facilitate their sociocultural functions through built form. Besides the awe-inducing stimulus, the specific type of awe elicited also has potential to produce different effects. Many positive effects associated with feeling awe have been demonstrated empirically, including increased prosocial behavior, increased feelings of connection to others, and enhanced physical health through lower levels of proinflammatory cytokines. Recent work has turned to the darker side of awe, investigating effects of feeling threat-based awe, or awe elicited through a threatening stimulus. Although both positive and threat-based awe result in a smaller sense of self, threat-based awe is associated with greater feelings of powerlessness and fear than positive awe. Thus, we hypothesize that awe-inspiring environments may have distinct effects based on whether they induce positive awe or threat-based awe, as well as whether the environment is natural or built. Specifically, we predict that while positive awe will facilitate feelings of universality and integration into larger groups (e.g., the world), threat-based awe will promote social connection to smaller social groups (e.g., one’s community). We further predict that this effect will be more pronounced for architectural environments, which have inherent social meaning, compared to natural environments. Across three online studies, we explore effects of positive and threat-based awe elicited through nature and architecture. Study 1 (N = 116) uses videos of natural phenomena used in previous work to replicate previous findings on positive and threat-based awe: We show that threat-based awe leads to greater feelings of powerlessness and fear than positive awe, and that both positive and threat-based awe result in a smaller perceived self-size than no awe. Study 2 (N = 100) extends these findings to architectural environments chosen to elicit positive and threat-based awe. While both awe conditions in Study 2 led to a smaller perceived self-size than the control condition as predicted, the architectural video meant to elicit threat-based awe elicited positive awe for most participants. Because we failed to elicit threat-based awe with architectural stimuli in Study 2, Study 3 (N = 85) compared only effects of positive awe elicited through natural and architectural environments on feelings of universality and identification with others. We find that both natural and architecturally induced positive awe similarly promote feelings of universality and connection with people all over the world, compared to a control condition. This research expands our understanding of how we respond to beautiful and threatening awe-evoking environments, from ancient monumental structures and natural phenomena to the supertall skyscrapers and natural disasters that are becoming increasingly common. This research furthermore helps us understand what awe-related effects demonstrated in cognitive science will have implications for architectural design
Parameterizing Inanimate Agents: The Motion of a Virtual Ball and the Behaviour of a Machine-Learning Interactive System
Get PDFIn this thesis we parameterized interactive objects and systems and investigated their effects on perceived agency. In one experiment we developed a virtual reality simulation in which the motion path of a virtual ball is parameterized by the magnitude and direction of its jerk component. Subjects classified several motions paths into animate and inanimate categories. We found that motion paths with a large jerky deviation from our definition of an inanimate zero jerk motion path, per the subject's physical point of view, are classified as animate by the subject. In another experiment, we developed a Living Architecture System whose interactive behaviours are defined by a set of modifiable control parameters. We focused on two behaviour modes which are differentiated by the usage of these control parameters: one in which static values were hand-picked to produce what we had determined to be aesthetically interesting interactive behaviour, and one in which a machine learning algorithm assumes full real-time control of each parameter with restrictions. We measured the subject's experience with skin-conductance and brain activity before and after exposure to one of the behaviour modes and follow with a questionnaire. We found that, after exposure, subjects who experienced static parameters had a decrease in skin-conductance while subjects who experienced the machine learning algorithm had an increase in skin-conductance. However, the statistically significant results of the second experiment remain inconclusive because of the small sample set
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