IAED 410
Environmental Psychology
Asst.Prof.Dr. Deniz Hasırcı
Spring 2009-2010
Three Orders in Looking at the Environment
- Three Orders
- Perception
- Gestalt
- Cognition
- Cognitive maps
Three Orders in Looking at the Environment
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Let’s be botanists.
Not florists: categorize according to color, fragrance.
Not farmers: rank according to marketability.
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Thus: Three Orders
1.
PHYSICAL ORDER (FORM):
2.
TERRITORIAL ORDER (PLACE):
3.
CULTURAL ORDER (UNDERSTANDING):
Environmental Perception and Cognition
1.
Environmental Perception
• Gestalt
2. Environmental Cognition
(operational)
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Cognitive Maps
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Wayfinding
1. Environmental Perception
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Process for gathering information about the world (source of
affective responses).
OBJECT PERCEPTION:
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Simple stimuli:
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Brightness
Color
Depth
Perceptual constancy
Form
Movement
“Perception-in-action”:
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Perceiver is part of the scene.
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Moving involves multiple perspectives.
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Perceiver is connected by clear goal.
Gestalt Psychology:
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The whole is more than the sum of its parts.
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Laws of organization (how the brain operates)
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Gestalt: “form”, “unified whole”, “configuration”.
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Gestalt psychologists developed five laws that
govern human perception:
1. Law of Proximity
2. Law of Similarity
3. Law of Good Continuation
4. Law of Closure
5. Law of Prägnanz (good form)
6. Law of Figure/Ground
2. Environmental Cognition
• The process of thought that leads to knowing:
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The psychological result of perception, learning, recognizing,
reasoning.
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Refers to the mental functions and processes (thoughts).
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How we acquire, store, organize, recall information about
locations, distances, and arrangements in spaces.
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http://www.vimeo.com/404183
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http://vimeo.com/7284425
Kevin Lynch’s Image of the City
What is your “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.
Why Legibility?
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Aids navigation
Guides social interaction
Prevents feeling lost
Helps make the environment feel like “home”
Some environments are more legible than others
Features of Cognitive Maps
• Lynch (1960):
– Five important elements (of legibility) in mental maps of
cities
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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.
• Path
• Edge
• Node
• District
• Landmark
• See you next week!
LAST WEEK:
Environmental Perception and Cognition
1.
Environmental Perception
• Gestalt
2. Environmental Cognition
(operational)
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Cognitive Maps
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Legibility
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Wayfinding
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.
• Effects of Signage and Floor Plan Configuration on Wayfinding
Accuracy [(Environment and Behavior, Vol. 23, No. 5, 553-574 (1991)].
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Michael J. O'Neill Interior Environments Pgm, Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison
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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.
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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.
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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
THIS WEEK:
1. Perceiving Configurations
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Live Configurations
Control vs. Ownership
Control Games
Overlap of Form and Territory
2. Basic Theories of Environment and Behavior
• 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.
• Public Spaces: Overlap of Form and Territory
• Manipulation of public space
• Claiming territory through use of space
• Zaha Hadid: Burnham Pavilion, Chicago
• http://vimeo.com/6937796
• http://vimeo.com/6937292
Ethics/Values and Attitudes
Ethics/Values
Attitudes
Environmental Effects
Behavior
Russell and Lanius:
Affective Quality of
Places
Arousing
Upleasant
Pleasant
Not Arousing
Kaplan and Kaplan Preference Model
* (Remember Lynch’s Spatial Descriptors!)
1.
2.
3.
4.
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
1.
Coherence: ease of organizing and structuring parts, units,
chunks, blocks or scene elements.
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Patterns that result from many similar and repeating parts allow
for easier human comprehension (similarity/proximity).
2. Legibility: is found in an environment that looks as if one could
explore extensively without getting lost.
• Undifferentiated sameness causes low legibility.
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.
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.
• See you next week!