-1MEANING IN THE ENVIRONMENT
AS CONSTRUED BY ENVIRONMENTAL
DESIGNERS AND LAYMEN
BY
PAUL STEVEN DEUTSCH
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the
Degree of Bachelor of Science
at the
MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
May, 1972
Signature of Author
Department of Urban Studies and Planning,
.May
12,
1 9A
7 2.
Certified by.
..
.......
sis Supervisor
Accepted by... ,
Cha
a
De,;'tmental Committee on Theses
Rotch
JUL 24 1972
-2Table of Contents
5
7
7
8
Introduction........................................page
The Problem.....................................page
Prior Studies..................................page
Personal Construct Theory......................page 10
11
The Research: Summary..........................page
page 14
..................
Methodology ...................
The Repertory Grid Technique..............
The Repertory Grid Test in
.......
page 14
......... page 16
Detail....
Methods of Analysis..............................page 18
Observations.*0@*
.......................
Conclusions ...............
. ..
..
..
..
.page
.......
26
page 38
38
pae
...........
...........
Theoretical .................
Methodological ................
. ..
....
.......
pge
40
Pratical ..............................
a9
41
Bibliography .........................
ae
47
49
Appendix A....................
...
pae
Appendix B......................ae
50
Appendix C........................ae
51
Appendix 9......................ae
65
U
-3Figures and Tables
Table 1
General Environments used in this Study...............page 15
Table 2
Summary of Research Design................. ....a
page 20
Table 3
Tables Depicting Three Different Distributions
of Construct Pairs and their H and T Values.... .......
page 21
Table 4
Table of Observations...............................
...... page 28
Table 5
Total Percentage Variance Accounted
.......
page 30
.......
page 33
Responsive vs. Representational Constructs..... .......
page 35
for by Factors ................................
Table 6
EDG and LG FactorLabes..........
Table 7
Table 8
Responsive vs. Representational Factors........ ....... page 36
Figure 1
Total Variance Accounted for
by Factors....................
.
....... page 32
-4Acknowledgements
The author would like to acknowledge the following people:
Dr. H. Stephen Leff for his invaluable aid and theoretical help
as the advisor for this thesis and developer of the wider applications
of personal construct theory;
Leonard and Suzanne Buckle for their resourcefulness in securing
funding for the study and constant encouragement;
Professor Mary C. Potter for her useful suggestions and criticisms;
Professor Kevin Lynch for enriching the scope of the study.
*1
Abstract
A version of George Kelly Is (1955) Role Construct Repertory
Grid Test was administered to ten graduate students of environmental
design (Environmental Design Group--EDG)
and ten graduate students in
unrelated fields (Lay Group-LG) to determine possible differences in
used to comprehend the physical environment.
categories
Subjects
were required to generate and apply their own categories (personal
constructs) to a set of environments selected by them..Data was analyzed
on a subject-by subject basis usirig techniques adapted from multivariate
informational analysis and factor analysis. It
was determined that:
(1) subjects in EDG generated either significantly fewer or
significantly more constructs than subjects in the LG (p less than .002);
(2)
the personal construct systems of subjects in the EDG contain
more significantly correlated (p less than .05) pairs of constructs
than those in the LG (p less than .05).
(3)
subjects in the EDG had a percentage variance accounted for
by their primary factors greater than subjects in the LG (p less than .2);
(4) no significant difference exists between the two groups as
to number of factors extracted or factor content;
(5) subjects in the EDG employed significantly more responsive
constructs which were highly loading on their factors than those in the
LG especially for the primary factor;
(6)
differences in both the number and content of factors found
exist between this study and previous studies.
It
is
suggested that designers tend to oversimplify their
environ-
J
-6mental images along subjective lines, whereas laymen tend to have a
more balanced, objective image of the environment.
07Introduction
The Problem
Architects, planners, and designers shape the physical world
in which we live. The physical world, in turn, helps to shape our
behavior and moods because it molds the pattern
a large extent.
It
is
of everyday life to
therefore essential for urban designers to. con-
struct man-made environments which complement human behavior and emotion.
Research to determine how people cognitively view their physical environment must play a vital role in helping designers create spaces which
wants of the users of those spaces. (raik,
true that design at present does not reflect human
are attuned to the needs and
1968).
If
it
is
goals ( Lynch and Rodwin, 1958),
and client, then it
and that a gap exists between architect
is useful to determine the nature of the difference
between the professional's and the layman's
environmental perception
towards an understanding of the causes of this misfit, with a methodology which would reduce the problems of past attempts. The systems of
categories that people
use to comprehend environments determines to
a large extent their feelings and behavior in those environments. These
systems of categories organize the individual's image of the environment,
i.e.,
the individual's "mental representation of the parts of
reality known to him by any kind of experience.
1971).
"
external
( Harrison and Sarre,
Studies of individuals are desirable because findings at the
group level often cannot be applied to the individual level, whereas
individual studies are validly generalizable to groups. (Robinson, 1950).
This study examines the systems of categories environnental designers
and laymen employ to characterize the environment.
I
-8Prior Studies
Lynch (1960)
showed that people in cities keep a mental image
of
their environment in their heads to order the physical characteristics
of urban places.
He obtained individual's notions of the visual form
of cities through interviews, walking with his subjects through the
city itself, and having his subjects draw maps of the city. The work
was pioneering, but lacking rigor.
The methodology has been used
extensively throughout the world since 1960, often with less success
and applicability to design criteria than when Lynch's skill is
brought
to bear upon the data produced. ( Wurman, 1971).
More recent studies have tried to utilize methodologies wherein
data is
generated which can more easily be analyzed.
Semantic differen-
For this method subjects rate a standard set of
of scales supplied by the investienvironments using a standard list
gators. Data for subjects are then pooled for the puropse of discovering
tials are often used.
the superordinate dimensions of meaning or factors underlying environmental comprehension. Hershberger (1969)
pre-architects,
showed a group of architects,
and laymen a series of slides of buildings. The subjects
were asked to rate the pictured structures on a semantic differential
list,
from which he drew conclusions concerning differences between the
laymen and the others in their perception of the environment. A number
of problems are concomitant with the use of slides and semantic differentials. This method relies on
unfamiliar pictured environments rather
than real ones; only the sense of vision is
involved. Subjects
have
no knowledg~e of the pictured building- in terms of levels and types of
-9activity, emotional feelings toward the place, history of the place, etc.
In addition, it
is difficult to represent much more than a single building
through the medium of slides; images of large-scale urban environments
therefore remain inaccessible.
Howard( 1972) has found that responses
to represented environments depend a great deal upon the exact nature
of the
representation. His research showed, for example, marked differences
in responses to slides of buildings taken on sunny as opposed to cloudy
days.
Although semantic differential lists are developed by pretesting,
and are refined considerab3y, they still
of ways of viewing
reflect only a limited number
the environment. Subjects cannot use their own words
ifr describing how they construe the environment, nor can they omit any
item on the list
they might feel to be irrelevant to architectural
meaning. Johnson (1968) eliminated some of the inherent difficulties
when he applied the semantic differential methodology to students'
perceptions of residence halls. In-that case, subjects had emotionally
experienced a physical place and had been familiar with it, as
to merely seeing pictures.
Hershberger's
opposed
more recent work (1972)
has also utilized real environments familiar to subjects.
However, that
very familiarity, while eliminating the problem of media representation,
accentuates the shortcomings of the semantic differential; subjects
could not communicate their personal organization of the physical world
in the way they might have liked , since such descriptions were given
to them.
Any new and potentially useful descriptions cannot be found
using a prepared listi
only
through trial and error could they be
-10discovered, The methodology also leaves open the question of how each
individual organizes his own image of the environment,
data is
since all subjects'
pooled.
Personal Construct Theory
George Kelly's (1955) work on personal construct theory offers
a new approach when applied to physical environments instead of its
usual context of person perception. He postulated that behavior follows
from knowledge, and that one's knowledge all lies within a conceptual
framework which is built up over time by categorizing information.
Any new knowledge or event is placed within the existing pattern of that
framework,
if
possible. Individuals accomplish this placing through the
use of characterizations of the environment, which Kelly refers to as
"constructs".
Specifically,
By construing, he meant "placing an interpretation upon."
"
In construing, the person notes features in a series of
elements which characterize some of the elements and are
particularly
urncharacteristic of others." The constructs, therefore, are bipolar,
as g6d-bad friendly-unfriendly.
such
The Repertory Grid Test developed by
Kelly makes the network of an individual's constructs visible and mathematically analyzable.
The technique lends itself to factor analysis, which
uncovers dimensions of meaning, major abstractions along which lines
individuals construe their environment. The suitability of Kelly' s
theories for environmental image study has been discovered independently
by Harrison. and Sarre (1971).
Their discussion of the theoretical aspects
of personal construct theory, along with Honikman' s (1972),
necessity for a more exhaustive discussion here.
obviates the
The Research: Summar
A sample of ten graduate students in architecture or environmental
design was obtained, along with ten graduate students in fields not
related to design.
The subjects were all presented with twenty
of environments; they selected
suggestions
twenty places meeting the suggestions
which were familiar to them. Subjects were then required to generate
and apply their own categories ( personal constructs) to the set of
twenty. Subjects gave a 114.11 to constructs which were true of an environment and a "-"
to constructs which were not true of an environment.
Past studies utilizing the Repertory Grid Test
have found variations
correlated with IQ and socio-economic status . A crude IQ test and a
set of questions indicating socio-economic status were administered to
the subjects to control for this variable. It
was found that there
were no differences between the environmental design group (EDG)
lay group (LG)
and the
great enough to raise doubts about the validity of the
results.
The test yields a large amount of data for each subject which lends
itself to a variety of analytic techniques. Each subject was instructed
to generate characterizations until
he could not think of significant
additional ones. Therefore, the number of characterizations (constructs)
for each subject was tabulated. It
was found that subjects in the
EDG
generated either significantly more or significantly fewer constructs
than those in the LG.
Information theory has been applied to the study of cognitive systems
(Attneave, 1959) to characterize two important aspects of those systems.
F
-12The variable H is
a measure of distribution; in this s -udy, it
measures
essentially the degree to which subjects divide the rated environments
equally into +'s and -'s
according to the constructs with which they are
rating the environments. H can be conceptrialized as measuring the degree
of discrimination of an individual's environmental cognitive system,
the extent to which an individual uses different categories to discriminate among differnet environments. No significant differences were found
between subjects in the EDG or LG
in this measure of discriminatory
power.
The variable T is
a measure of organization!; in this study it
measures the correlation between every
If
a subject used the constructs
construct pair for each subject.
t modern"t
and Iflike", for example,
and he likes modern places, T would be close to +1
-1, a perfect negative correlation, and +1,
( T varies between
a perfect positive correlation.)
T can be thought of as a measure of the extent to which an individualIs
environmental
It
constructs are systematically associated with each other.
was found that subjects in the EDG had more significantly correlated
pairs of constructs than those in the LG.
Factor analysis was then performed upon the data to determine
whole groupings of constructs which were inter-related. Such groupings
(factors) correspond to major abstractions along which lines individuals
organize their environmental images, i.e., dimensions of meaning.
The number
of factors yielded for each subject ranged from three to
seven. No significant difference was found in the number of factors per
subject between the designers and laymen, nor in the types of factors in
k
-013the two groups. Designers did, however, have a significantly higher
average percentage variance for the first (most important) factor than
subjects in the lay group. In other words, designers tended to have
one dimension of environmental image organization in which more of
their total environmental cognition fell. The dimensions of meaning
portrayed by factors can be thought of as a mountain range, with the
peaks representing the descrete factors. The height of the peaks corresponds to the importance of that particular factor. Continuing the
analogy, the range of the subjects in the EDG would include one
clearly dominant
peak, with a series of smaller ones. The range of the
subjects in the LG would look like a more uniform series of peaks.
Hershberger (1972),
posed a basic list
working with semantic differentials, has pro-
of twenty factors important to environmental meaning.
The author found significant differences between Hershberger's list
and the
factors generated by the subjects in this study. At least one important
factor not included in the prior study was determined to be of significance (,an urban-rural factor),
and many factors suggested by Hersh-
berger were not culled at all from subjects in either the EDG or the LG.
Methodology
The subjects in this study consisted of ten graduate
students
in the disciplines of environmental design or architecture and ten
graduate students in fields unrelated to design. The selection of graduate students rather than undergraduates was thought to be necessary
because of the more specialized pre-professional training given at the
graduate level, especially for design students. Some of the subjects in
the EDG were already practiced in the profession of architecture'. The
sample size of twenty
was somewhat small, but the author believes that
the Repertory Grid technique yields a rich enough field of data for each
individual to render his findings significant.
The Repertory Grid Technique
Two basic problems common to most attempts at measuring environmental images are the selection of the environments to be described by
the subjects and the generation of descriptions of those environments.
It
is
the author's contention that merely attempting to characterize
an environment by its
physical attributes must inevitably omit much of
that environment's profoundest meaning. The kinds of activities occurring
there, the clientele, the emotional feelings, the sense of character,
the flavor and depth of history, and the social graciousness of a place
cannot be captured without actual familiarity with that place. It
was
therefore deemed essential that subjects in this study be familiar with
the environments they would characterize.
Some measure
of control over
those environments was also considered necessary to facilitate comparisons
of diverse, suggested
between subjects. It was dbcided to utilize a list
types of environments (Table 1) from which the subjects would then select
specific places with which they were familiar.
Table 1
General Environments Used in This Study
1. A House
2. An airport
3. A park
4.
A vacation place
5.
A library
6. A city plaza
7. A restaurant
8.
An apartment
9. A down-town
10. Harvard Square
11. A shopping center
12. A typical suburb
13. A hotel
A European city
15. A subway
16. The worst place you can think of
17. BackBay, Boston
18. An office
19. A church or synagogue
20. A city street
-16The author- believes Kelly' s original method of construct elicitation to be most effective, and duplicated his procedux - in this
study.
Subjects had in front of them twenty cards with the names of twenty
specific places they had selected to match the author's suggested types
of places. They were then instructed to select groups of three places,
two alike in
some important way and the third different in that same way.
The characteristics ( and opposites) used to sort the environments correspond to Kelly's notion of bipolar constructs, and each sorting
produces a verbal description in the subjects's own words of one way in
which he organizes his environment.
Subjects were told to continue
sorting the environments until they could think of no new significant
attribute with which to characterize the environments. The range of
constructs thus elicited corresponded to the different properties which
the individual subject uses to organize his image of the environment.
The Repertory Grid Test in Detail
Subjects were tested individually, in a room with large desk space
on which they found twenty cards with the author's suggested environments
printed. They were instructed to:
1. Go through the cards one by one and note on each card a specific
place familiar to them which fitted the description on that card' If
they came
to a card describing a type of place
they were unfamiliar
with, subjects were told to picture their stereotype of that place and
to write " stereotype" on that card.
2. Pick out a group of three cards, two of the cards in the group
describing two places alike in some important way, the third card describing
a place different from the other two in that same way. Inform the
investigator ( the author) of the characteristic used.
-173. Continue picking out groups of three in this manner until
they could not think of a single new characteristic with which to describe the places. Subjects were told that the descriptions could des.
cribe the environments physically, by the kinds of activities that occur
there, or by the emotional feelings the place gives to them. Cards
could be used more than once in forming the groups of three, but the
descriptions used had to be different for each sort.
4.
Rate each environment in the light of each characteristic
they had mentioned. The author had been writing down the constructs
generated by the subjects on separate rating sheets ( Appendix A).
The sheets were then given the subjects, each sheet containing one of
his constructs and its
opposite in parentheses ( to help define
the
construct).
A column of boxes labelled from one through twenty corresponded with the twenty cards with environments, also numbered. Subjects
were asked to take
each characteristic and apply it to each environment.
If a characteristic applied to an environment and was true of that place,
subjects were told to put a plus (+) in that appropriate box. If a
characteristic applied to an environment but was
not relevant to the
environment', and the subject would not use that description in thinking
about the place, they were asked to place a zero (0) in that box. After
all the environents had been rated
for each construct, subjects were
asked to go back to those boxes in which they had placed a zero and
place either a plus or minus depending upon what they would have indicated
about the environment with regard to that specific characteristic if
they had been forced to choose initially between only a plus or a minus.
The author added three constructs to those mentioned by all the
-subjects and asked them to rate the environments in the light of those
three as if they had mentioned the construct themselves. The additional
-18-.
three constructs were added incorder to obtain some measure of communality
between subjects and to elicit responses to the new constructs themselves,
since they represented three basic dimensions of meaning. The constructs
added were " I like this place,
to obtain affective response; I A place
I would judge to be good," to obtain an evaluative response; and " An
easy
-
to- utilize place," to obtain a response based on the dimension
of function.
The author then administered the tests of IQ and socio-economic
status (SES)
to the subjects. The Repertory Grid Test required an
average of approximately one and one-half hours per subject toccomplete,
including about ten to fifteen minutes for the IQ and SES tests. Time
consumed by the test was most directly dependent upon
constructs generated
the number of
by the subjects. The subject with the least number
of constructs generated completed the test in fifty minutes, while
the subject generating the most constructs took two and one half hours.
Methods of Analysis
The methods of analysis performed upon the data extracted from
subjects are summarized in Table 2.
If the grid obtained from subjects' ratings of environments is
thought of as reflecting the individuals'
environmental
cognitive
system, then it is necessary to obtain a measure of the extent to which
constructs used in characterizing environments are distributed. To
the degree that the constructs are not distributed equally (with the
-19maximum possible distribution) among the environs characterized,
system's discriminatory power is
the
limited. As Bannister and Mair note:
i It can be argued that a construct ... is(like a ChiSquare) maximally useful the nearer it approximates
to dividing up the world half-and-half, and presumably becomes totally useless when all elements
occupy one pole. The construct then discriminates
nothing from anything else. If all men are bad,
point of thinking of men
then there is little
as good or bad, since no differential predictions
are generated and no differential implications
are available to explore."
It
is
possible to measure the amount of discrimination and distri-
bution by means of the information theory statistic H. When computed
from data derived from the grid, H will vary between .00 and 1.00 and
be a direct function of the degree to which a given construct divides
the environments to which it
is relevant equally into + 's and -'s.
Tables 3a, 3b and 3c are examples of three correlation tables which
might appear in an individual' s environmental cognitive system grid,
in this case comparing the constructs "good" and "modern".
The total
in the plus marginals indicate the number of environments characterized
either as "good" or "modern",
of environments characterized
those in the
as either
- marginals, the number
"not good" or
"not modern".
As the distributions of the constructs go from a maximum to a minimum
distribution of zero and sixteen the values of H drop from 1.00 to .00
(Leff, 1969).
The amount of organization in an individual's environmental cognitive system can be thought of as the degree of relation between the
system elements ( constructs).
The information theory statistic
T,
I
-20defined as the amount of information shared by two variables (Attneave,
1959), is one measure of the correlation between pairs of constructs.
T varies from a minimum of .00 to a maximum of 1.00. In Table 3a, the
linkages of "good" and "modern are maximally distributed, and T takes
on its minimum value of .00.
Table 3b depicts a situation wherein the
joint occurences of "good" and "modern" are significantly more restricted,
and T is equal to .20. However, in the case where either of the H
values of a pair of constructs is equal to .00 (Table 3c), T will
always be equal to zero, because if
cannot be reliably related
something is
not discriminable, it
to anything else.( Leff, 1969). Because the
degree to which a system may be organized is constrained by its degree
of discrimination, a T for a given pair of H's can never exceed the
smallest H of the pair.
Table 2.
Summary of Research Design
Samples
Control Variables
Independent Variables
1. Environmental
Designers
IQ
# Constructs
2. Non-environmental designers
SES
H (discriminatory
power)
T (degree of
organization)
# Significant T
# Construct pairs
(amount of
organization)
# Factors (complexity
of organization)
Factor Content
-21Table
3
Tables Depicting Three Different Distributions of
Construct Pairs and their H and T values
3a.
(Leff, 1969).
modern
*
Hgood
-
good
8
H
modern
8
3b.
8
16
Tgood-modern
=
1.00
1.00
= 0.00
modern
+0
good
2
10
10
3c.
4
6
2
14
good
H
~~ 0.54
Hmodern
0.96
T
good-modern
0.20
16
modern
*
Hgood
0.00
good
Hdern
Tgood-modern
0.00
= 0.00
-22In analyzing the grid data from this study, then, the assumption
is made that the higher the number of significant T's (i.e., the more
closely an individual's environmental constructs are
the more organized is
knit to each other),
that individual's image of the environment.
One
It
potentially troublesome danger exists in making that assumption.
is conceivable that a subject's constructs could be so simplistic that
many of them actually represent the same or closely related lines of
thought. The average T for such a subject would then be inflated, not
because of meaningful
because
relationships between different constructs, but
the constructs merely
overlap in meaning.
In this instance,
a high average T, far from indicating a greater amount of organization
in an individual's complex construction of the environment, would
indicate simply the expected high correlations between constructs which
were similar in meaning.
Fortunately, as will be discussed later, an
examination of the major dimensions of meaning extracted by factor analysis
helps in the differentiation between organization and overlap.
Because the Repertory Grid Test in this study was open-ended, the
number of constructs generated by each subject is significant.
Pre-
sumably, the grater the number of constructs generated by an individual,
the greater the number of ways which that individual uses to order his
environmental image.
The number of ways an individual perceives the
environment is therefore, in turn, a measure of his
sensitivity to the
environment and the complexity of his environmental thinking.
For this
reason, the number of constructs for each subject was examined in relation
to the number for the other subjects.
-23The heart of the information extracted from the data was revealed
by performing factor analysis upon the data content.
This is
whereby salient clusters of similar constructs are di.scerned.
analysis is
a method
Factor
commonly used to reveal essential dimensions of meaning
contained within a large amount of data. In the context of this study,
these dimensions of meaning (factors) correspond to major abstractions
along which lines individuals organize and imagine their everyday
physical surroundings.
The number of factors present in an individual's environmental
cognitive system can be taken as an indicator of the complexity of that
individual's environmental organization. If, for example, one individual's
data analysis revealed him to have three factors of environmental
cognition and another individual's analysis showed him having seven,
it can be inferred that the latter's environmental cognitive system,
because of its greater number of superordinate organizational dimensions
of meaning, is more complex and varried. The number of factors per subject
and the differences between the number of factors per subject
between the
EDG and the.LG, was therefore examined.
An examination of the number of factors for individual subjects
was also useful in determining whether any high average T value reflected
amount of
organization or merely overlap in meaning.
If a subject
relied upon certain narrow, simplistic, or overlapping constructs,
thus
producing an inflated T value, the number of factors extracted from
his
constructs would be less than expected if
the high T
had actually
-24depicted a high amount of organization.
if
To take a hypothetical situation,
a subject had achieved a high T because his constructs were organized
around the basic dimensions of aesthetic appeal,
social appeal and
familiarity, factor analysis would reveal these three basic dimensions
and no others which would be significant.
Another subject might have had
a lower T value, but have had seven factors.
It
could be inferred that
the latter subject's T was truly representative of environmental cognitive
complexity as corroborated by the larger number of factors, while
the first
subject's high T was " exposed " as being inflated because it
reflected only the expected high amount of correlation between constructs
organized around similar lines.
Additional analysis of the factors extracted was carried out to
determine if:
(1) the facotrs are similar to the ones found when semantic differentials are used;
(2) there are significant differences in the types of factors
used by subjects in the EDG as opposed to the LG;
(3) there are certain factors which are dominant in the environmental
cognition of either the EDG or the LG;
(4)there
are significant differences in the number of responsive
(subjective) vs. representational (objective) factors found between the
EDG and the LG.
The two variables measured in this study were intelligence
and socic-economic
status (SES).
(IQ)
IQ was measured using the Shipley
Hartford tests of verbal and abstract intelligence (Shipley, 1940).
SES was measured using the Hollingshead (1965) two factor index of
socio-economic status.
Because the size of the sample used in this study was small and
the distributions of the dependent variables was not known, non-.
parametric statistics were used to compare groups.
U Test ( Siegel, 1956) was utilized
The Mann-vhitney
to determine significance levels
of the data. Because of the distributional uncertainty, all tests
were two-tailed, providing a more rigorous measure of significance.
The H and T statistics were computed using a special program for
the computation of multivariate informational analysis (IaA) statistics
from grid data ( Leff and Rees,1972).
Factor analysis was performed using the Datatext program on the
IBM 360 system, (Armor,
factors
1972).
This program yields all significant
(to X root = 1 in this study) and computes the percentage
of total variance accounted for by each factor.
rotated, a procedure
The factors were then
which essentially strengthens the loadings of
the highly correlated variables and diminishes the loadings of the
lower correlated variables to present a clearer picture of the content
of each subject's factors.
--26-
Observations
Table 4 summarizes the observations for the simpler correlations
and other methods of analysis.
Subjects were
assigned numbers from one to twenty based on the
chronological order of testing .Table 4 separates subjects in the
Environmental Design Group ( top group of ten) from those in the Lay
Group (bottom) in order to facilitate comparison of the two groups
with regard to the variables measured.
The second column, labelled
# Constructs," gives the number
of constructs generated by each subject, tanging from a low of seven
to a high of 32.
Subjects in the EDG generated an average of two
more constructs each than those in the LG (15.4 constructs/subject
vs. 13.4 constructs/subject). An examination of the ranking of subjects
according to number of constructs elicited yielded a more significant
result. It was found that subjects in the EDG generated either more
or fewer constructs than those in the 1G.
In other words, the students
in fields unrelated to design tended to have a dramatic clusteringtoward the center, generating, with only one exception, eleven to
seventeen constructs.
Environmental designers clustered around the
extremes in this regard, with one group of five having from seven to
eleven constructs, the other half having from eighteen to 32. The
probability of this distribution occurring by chance is less than
.002.
-27No significant difference was found between the two groups for
their average H values (column three).
The next column gives the average T value for all of the construct
pairs for each subject.
Column
five gives one of the most useful
statistics, the number of significant T values for each subject divided
by the number of construct pairs per subject.
The computer printout of T values also tabulated the number of
significant T correlations for each subject. - This
is
of little
information, however,
meaning unless compared with the total amount of construct
pairs correlated for each subject.
Therefore,
column five represents
the nearest measure of amount of relationship between individual's
constructs.
The subjects in the EDG were found to
have significantly
more highly correlated pairs of constructs in their environmental
cognitive systems than in those
of the LG.
The probability of the
distribution found occurring by chance is less than .05.
'was deemed significant if
the probability of its
( A T value
occurrence by chance
was less than .05.)
The average value was taken among all significant T's; the difference
between the two
groups that was found was samll enough to have
occurred by chance (column six).
The number of significant factors extracted for each subject
is shown in the final column of Table h. No significant difference
was found for subjects in the EDG
and the ID; average number of
-28.
Table 4
1
2
3
4
Subject
# Con-
Number
structs
Ave.
H
Ave.
T
1
32
.897
.087
5
11
.922
6
10
7".
5
7 Sig. T/
construct
6
Wve.
value
sig. T.
7
No. of
Factors
.256
.436
7
.053
.132
.383
4
.891
.131
.436
.487
3
9
.798
.042
.061
.495
4
8
7
.929
.063
.222
.323
h
9
18
.900
.052
.133
.406
7
10
9
.911
.092
.333
.420
4
11
18
.897
.055
.138
.425
6
12
22
.775
.044
.087
.359
7
17
18
.865
.109
.381
.450
5
2
16
.858
.041
.058
.399
7
3
17
.899
.051
.126
.373
6
4
13
.828
.027
.008
.276
6
13
12
.892
.058
.124
.429
4
14
14
.875
.060
.162
.376
5
15
12
.962
.035
.057
.486
5
16
17
.91
.054
.147
.350
6
18
11
.783
.050
.055
.465
5
19
13
.905
.52
.092
.414
5
20
9
.917
.103
.333
.428
3
____To
EDG
-29factors for subjects in the EDG was
Table
5
5.1,
for subjects in the LG, 5.2.
depicts the percentage of to.tal variance for each factor
extracted for all subjects.This
percentage is a measure of the number
of different constructs -related to a specific factor; if, for example,
the percentage
is 33.31S,
of to.tal variance accounted for by the first factor
then one-third of that individual's total environmental
cognition can be said to be organized along that one dimension of
meaning.
It
was found that subjects in the EDG have a higher average
percentage variance accounted for by their first factors than those
in the 1L.
Although this finding only approaches significance (the
probability of the distribution occurring by chance is less than .20),
Figure 1,
a graph of the information in Table
5,
clearly shows a
substantially larger variance for the first factors in the EDG group,
while the remaining factors of the EDG group account for less variance
than those in the LG because the latter's are
more evenly distributed.
As discussed in the introduction, Hershberger (1972) has formulated a list of twenty scales with which to measure environmental
meaning, drawn from various investigators'
differentials.
(Appendix B).
research with semantic
In labelling the factors extracted from
subjects' data in this study, the author made a conscious attempt to
apply Hershberger's discriptors according to the factor structures
presented by him.It was felt that this method would provide the
fairest test of the viability of Hershberger's twenty
factors as to
~30Table 5
Total Percentage Variance Accounted for by Factors
Factors (figures expressed in percentages)
6
2
3
20.3
7.3
5.9
5
41.6
35.7
17.0
12.5
11.1
6
57.8
11.2
7
27.5
13.4
25.7
10.1
9.5
8 .
47.4
18.6
11.9
10.5
9
33.0
12.4
7.5
10
47.0
15.9
18.3
11.1
11
35.5
12.9
11.4
9.4
7.7
12
27.4
20.2
17
51.4
12,5
9.7
9.7
7.0
EDG mean
hD.4
17.5
10.7
8.4
Subject
Number
1
1
8.7
4.8
3.9
3.6
6.3
5.7
4.9
7.0
6.1
5.6
5.8
4.9
5.6
LG
2
27.6
16.4
12.5
10,8
3-
29.8
21.9
10.2
8.7
4'
23.1
17.6
11.2
10.1
13
14
33.9
21.8
12.5
7.4
36.2
26.5
20.9
17.7
11.0
12.8
7.2
11.1
34.2
16.9
10.9
8.3
9.4
7.4
18
32.7
18.1
12.3
9.8
7.7
19
16.8
12.5
9.8
8.7
20
32.9
51.8
11.9
9.7
LG men n
32.9
18.0
-1.6
9.1
7.4
15
16
7.0
7.5
7.5
6.5
6.3
6.7
6.2
5.8
-31-.
their actual employment by subjects in this study.
The complete list
of factors and highly correlated constructs per subject comprises
Appendix C.
Appendix D represents the factor names for each factor
by subject.
Table 6 summarizes the findings. Factors are listed in
decreasing order of use by subjects, with the columns indicating the
number of subjects in the EDG and the LG using the specific factors
in
their environmental image organization. Factors included in Hersh-
berger's list
are marked with an asterisk (*).
Four dimensions of meaning emerged as significant, being employed
by one-half or more of the subjects in this study.
factor, representing such constructs as
The "friendly"
warm and familiar, hospitable,
personal, and human, was found to occur among all subjects save two.
An aesthetic factor, representing physical beauty or liking, and a
utility factor, representing the ease with which an environment may
be used, were also found to be important, with twelve subjects utilizing
each.
The aesthetic and friendliness factor were also found by Hershber-
ger to be the two most important scales, but he placed the utility
scale last in importance.
The significant presence of that scale is
probably inflated in this study because of the inclusion of the
author's -"easy to utilize" construct; nevertheless, the simple
inclusion of that one scale did not imply that twelve subjects would
organize one of their basic dimensions of meaning around it,
its
so that
importance cannot be dismissed.
I
-32Figure 1
Total Variance Accounted for by Factors
iLd
cz
LLJ
0
G
m
f
%VARIANCE ACCOUNTED FOR
-33Table 6
EDG and LG Factor Labels
Factor
# EDG Using
# LG Using
Total #
dubjects using
Friendly *
8
10
Aesthetic*
7
5
18
12
Utility *
6
12
Urban-rural
6
6
Space *
2
6
Time*
3
S
Organization *
Noise *
2
2
0
Residential
0
10
Freedom
0
Public Acess
1
4
3
3
3
3
3
3
Ornate *
2
2
2
2
0
2
2
2
Privacy *
Activity level
Size *
Individuality
Consumeristic
2
Good
Neatness *
0
Lighting *
1
0
Activity type
Natural
0
1
1
10
Sensual
0
0
Familiarity
1
0
Working-class
Young
Work
0
0
* This factor included in Hershberger's list
(1972),
Half of the
subjects had an urban-rural factor.
Hershberger
does not include this descriptor in his list, but the organization of
constructs such as urban, in the country, greenery, and natural would
seem to qualify it
as an important dimension.
While the factors of space, ornateness, neatness, size, lighting
privacy, noise, and time also appeared in this study's subjects,
none were present to the degree of importance suggested by Hershberger.
In addition, his important potency dimension, along with coloring,
temperature,
shape, ventilation, rigidity, formality, and texture,
are not represented in Table 6.
No significant differences were found in the content of factors
employed by the EDG as opposed to the LG.
Both groups utilized the
major dimensions about equally in their environmental organization.
A noteworthy difference was found between the environmental
designers and the laymen with regard to employment of representational
versus responsive constructs (Table 7) and factors (Table 8). A
representational construct or factor is more objective, such as noise,
lighting, urban, sprawling, etc.
Examples of responsive (subjective)
factors or constructs include liking, well-designed unfriendly, etc.
i.e., one that implies a value judgement. Among all highly correlated
constructs for factors, subjects in the EDG had a significantly higher
percentage of responsive ones than subjects in the LG.
In fact,
slightly over half of such constructs were responsive for the EDG,
Table 7
Responsive vs. Representational Constructs
13ubj ec t
Number
(Figures express # of highly loading Rep.
constructs/# of highly loading Res. constructs)
Factor
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Totals
1
0/15
3/6
1/3
0/2
0/1
1/1
1/1
6/29
5
3/3
0/8
1/6
2/0
3/0
1/1
1/0
1/2
8
2/0
0/3
3/0
1/1
3/0
1/0
1/1
3/0
0/2
1/2
9
3/3
3/0
2/0
3/1
0/1
10
2/2
2/1
0/3
0/1
11
12
1/7
1/1
3/0
1/3
1/1
1/1
0/6
2/3
2/1
2/1
2/0
1/1
17
6/3
2/0
3/0
3/0
6/0
Totals
17/50
20/18
18/8
15/11
10/7
h/h
5/2
91/99
2
2/2
0/h
2/1
3/0
1/0
0/1
1/0
9/8
3
h/2
3/1
4/0
1/0
1/3
1/0
h
2/1
1/1
3/0
1/0
1/1
1/0
13
h/0
3/2
2/0
0/2
14
1/4
2/1
1/1
1/0
2/0
1/2
8/8
15
3/0
2/2
1/1
2/0
2/0
0/1,
10/4
16
0/4
h/0
2/3
1/1
2/1
0/3
9/12
18
2/1
2/0
0/2
3/0
1/1
8/4
19
2/2
2/1
2/0
1/2
h/0
11/5
20
1/5
2/1
1/2
Totals
21/21
21/13
18/10
14/6
h/8
94/63
EDG
6
7
8/9
4/11
9/3
6/6
1/1
1/0
15/6
h/7
8/13
3/1
13/12
20/3
LG
13/5
3/7
14/6
3/1
h/1
12/4
9/h
-36Table 8
Responsive vs. Representational Factors
Subject
Number
Factor
Total
5
6
rep
rep
Rep/Res F.
1
2
3
1
res
res
res
res
rep
rep
res,
rep
6
res
rep
rep
res
7
8
rep
rep
rep
res
res
3/2
res
res
rep
rep
res
2/3
9
res
rep
rep
rep
res
10
res
res
11
res
rep
rep
rep
res,
rep
res
rep
12
res
rep
res
rep
rep
res
17
res
rep
rep
rep
rep
Total
Rep/Res. F.
1/9
7/3
8/2
6/h
3/4
1/2
1/1
29/25
rep
rep
rep
rep
5/2
rep
rep
res
rep
rep
rep
res
rep
rep
rep
res
res
rep
res
13:
rep
res
rep
res
14
res,
rep
rep
rep
rep
res
h/2
15
rep
res
rep
rep
rep
res
16
res
rep
rep
res
res
res
h/2
2/4
18
19
res
rep
res
rep
res
2/3
res
rep
rep
res
rep
20
res
rep
res
3/2
1/2
Total
Rep/Res F.
4/6
6/4
8/2
6/3
5/3
EDG
rep
2/2
res
res
rep
3/4
1/3
h/2
rep
h/3
h/l
I0
3
h/3
2/2
51
rep
5/2
2/2
2/h
2/0
33/22
-37while only 63 out of 157 were responsive for
is most strikingly manifested in the first
the LG. The difference
(most important ) factors;
here, 75% of the highly loading constructs for the EDG were responsive,
compared to 50% for the LG. In addition, nine out of ten of the EDG's
primary factors were responsive, versus six out of ten for the LG.
-38Conclusions
Theoretical
The author believes Personal Construct Theory to be an extremely
promising method in the measurement of environmental images and
organization. The method allows subjects to give, in their own words,
the elements of environmental thought which they consider to be most
important to them.
This is not to imply that construct theory is without its pitfalls.
The use of information theory in the ananysis of social science data
has been criticized as measuring merely syntax rather than actual
meaning ( Harrison and Sarre, 1971).
Care must be excercised in the
selection of techniques of analysis of the grid and the meaning attached
to them.
The grid test yields an unusually large amount of data for
each individual subject; the organization of this data and the theories
underlying that organization must be examined carefully to determine
just what is being measured. This study presents only a few of the
statistical measures which can be
utilized with the grid technique.
The very complexity of the information yielded through construct
theory, though,,is an encouraging sign. The personal image of the
environment is also very complex; the essential assumption of this
study is that constructs generated by subjects can
be mapped onto
their total cognitive representation of the environment and thus
provide access to that representation for the investigator on an
individual by individual basis. With further, more sophisticated
-39applications of the grid technique, investigators should be able to
discover, by comparing individual' s environmental images, the kinds
of internal organization which leads to conflicting images, e.g.
why one person will consider a room to be " threatening " while
another considers it
to be comfortable. Construct theory permits a
visual display of linked constructs, so that, in this example, the
significant constructs connected with the individual's construction of
a threatening place can be studied.
Many researchers have tried to specify a definitive number of
dimensions of meaning (factors) representing the individual's maximum
capacity to process information. Osgood (1957) has attempted to
utilize three factors as sufficient; Miller (1956) believes the average
to be seven, plus or minus two; Hershberger (1971) insists that
twenty such scales are
"almost just right".
The subjects in this
study were found to have from three to seven factors representing
their image of the environment. It
would seem, therefore,
that some
sort of balance between Osgood's three and Miller's seven is
The author suggests that three is
indicated.
too low to adequately capture all
vital dimensions, and that too much conslidation of potentially useful
discrete factors is
involved in trying to reduce the complexity of
information organization to those three.
At the opposite extreme,
twenty factors seems much too large a number for any one individual
to employ; as demonstrated in this study, subjects actually used only
a fraction of Hershberger's scales. If presented with all twenty
scales,
subjects will of course rate environments on the basis of each
-40scale, but the author suggests that many if
not most o' them are
coparitively insignificant in terms of the individual' s total cognition.
Methodological
The Repertory Grid Test is
a time-consuming method compared to
the semantic differential technique.
Approximately one and one-half hours
are required to test each subject (as opposed to perhaps ten or
fifteen minutes for the marking of a semantic differential list), and
subjects must be tested individually ( semantic differentials are
written, and any number of subjects may rate the given environments
at the same time).
In addition, factor analysis for the grid data
(and other statistical measures ) are computed on a
subject-by-subject
basis, rather than on a pooling of all data for all subjects.
The
author believes, however, that the advantages of the methodology more
than compensate for its
comparative difficulty in administering it.
S'ubjects, rather than having to rely upon descriptors of the
investigator's choosing, use their own words to convey significant
attributes of -the environment.
eliminating
the
common
Their descriptions may be entire sentences,
dissatisfaction
with
6ne w word
adjectives and the possible ambiguities associated with such terse
characterizations.
Subjects may also omit rating a specific environ-
ment on the basis of a specific construct if
construct is
not
they feel that the
relevant to their characterization of the place.
(In
this study, constraints of analysis sophistication prohibited allowing
subjects not to rate any environment.)
The grid method provides a much finer grain of information,
since analysis is
done separately for each individual. Conclusions
may then be more validly generalizable to the population, whereas the
pooled semantic differential data cannot be used to provide conclusions
on an individual basis.
Practical
The conclusions presented in this section must be tempered by
the awareness that only twenty subjects were used in this study, a
somewhat small number from which to generalize. In addition, some
of the analysis is not open to clear-cut conclusions; the author
offers5 suggested interpretations of these results.
Table
4,
each subject.
column '2 depicts the number of constructs elicited from
Subjects in the EDG generated either significantly
more or significantly fewer constructs than those in the LG. This
finding can possibly be interpreted as indicating that there are two
types of environmental designers.
about environments, utilizes major
The first
type, when thinking
abstractions into which details
are pre-fit. The constructs of the first type, therefore,
be factors in themselves.
would
Essentially, these designers can describe
more with less. This conslusion is somewhat substantiated by the high
ratio
second
of factors for these subjects to number of constructs.
type of designer, on the other hand, is
detailed characterizations.
The
concerned more with
Dimensions of meaning for this type of
designer can only be uncovered through factor analysis. An interesting
.42.
study might compare the designs of the two groups in order to discover
the possible ramifications of these two types of thought processes upon
the output of architects.
The lay subjects were clustered in the
middle of the construct scale, indicating that individuals not trained
in thinking about the physical environment have a fairly constant
number of important elements in their environmental cognition space.
Table 4, column
5
portrays the level of organization found in
the construct systems of subjects. It expresses the ratio of highly
correlated construct pairs to the total number of construct pairs.
Architects and designers were found to have more significnat correlations between their constructs than laymen. If a personal construct
is
thought of as being a part of
an individual's cognitive field,
this finding means that more parts of the field are related to other
parts; in other words, there is more organization in the
field.
Thus, while designers tend to group certain constructs, laymen tend
toward viewing each construct as a more separate entity. This is
not
an unexpected finding, since architects are trained to organize
their conception of physical space so that they can
translate the
laymen--client's descrete needs and desires into general design criteria.
Possible danger lies in over-generalizing these separate desires so
that some of them are unintentionally sacrificed, not because of
economic
or other practical reasons, but
because
of certain
assumed
inferences in the designer' s mind. For example, an architect might
link order with utility, and assume that, given a sufficient amount of
-43order in an environment,
ease of utilization will follow.
His client,
however, might conceive of order and utility as two more distantly
related characteristics, and find that the highly ordered environment
produces more monotony than ease of utilization, and that simply
clarity would have sufficed and allowed for a looser degree of order.
The H values for the EDG and the LG are comparable. This indicates
that the differences found between the two groups as to their organization ( T values) is
significant,
does not merely reflect
since it
a relative lack of discrimination among constructs.
H can also be
thought of as representing the degree of individuation
(Leff, 1969),
or the tendency to "lump" constructs together, What this implies in
terms of this study is
that the T correlations did in fact represent
meaningful associations between construct pairs and was not a spurious
result
It
of subjects'. lumping together constructs by coincidence.
appears that architects and designers employ the same number
of dimensions in their total environmental cognition as do laymen (Table
4, column 7). Moreover, as Table 6 shows, no
significant difference
exists between subjects in the EDG and the LG interms of factor
content. Environmental designers, then utilize very similar dimensions
as laymen in thinking about the environment, in
spite of their training.
What could be the source of the observed misfit, then, between man
and the physical environment? Aside from the possibility of differences
in cognitive organization discussed above,
a closer inspection of the
factors extracted from the data might provide a clue.
It
was found that subjects in the EDG have a higler 'percentage
variance accounted for by their first factor than those in the LG.
In other words, architects and designers have a greater tendency
than laymen to organize their constructs systems along one dominant
dimension. Figure 1 represents this dominance graphically; each
peak represents a factor, the height of the peak being determined by
Although the inter-
the number of constructs linked to that factor.
pretation of this finding is not clear-cut, the author suggests that
it
may, in
part, reflect a tendency of designers to oversimplify
their image of the environment.
one
Laymen, on the other hand, do not allow_
dimension to dominate as murch,
and thus have a more balanced
system of categories with which to comprehend environments than architects
and designers.
One more finding must be discussed in order to bring the meaning
of all the data into focus. Tables 7 and 8 depict the number of representational (more objective) and responsive (more subjective) constructs
and facotrs for both groups. The EDG had significantly more responsive
highly loading constructs included in their factors than the LG. The
ratio of representational to responsive factors did not reveal such
a striking difference between the two groups.
However, most noteworthy
are the results for the first (primary) factor. For subjects in the
EDG,
only seventeen out of sixty-seven highly loading factors on their
primary constructs were representational,
whereas for the LG,
half of such constructs were representational.
In
fully
addition, only
one out of ten primary .factors of the EDG were representational,
as compared
to four for the LG. This finding is
especially significant
in the light of the finding that the primary factor represents more
of the designer's total
thought about the evnironment (40.4% to 32.9%).
In short, environmental designers in this study think about the environment more in terms of personal value judgements than the laymen, who
tended to image the environment more objectively.
What general conclusions can be drawn from this information?
The
author suggests the following hypothesis as worthy of further
research; Either because of their training or because of certain common
inherent traits, environmental
designers organize their environmental
cognitive systems differently than laymen.
The difference does not
lie in the extent or specific environmental dimensions of meaning
employed, but in the extent of organization. Designers tend to oversimplify the range of attributes they consider important, and they
do this along the lines of value judgements concerning environmental
characteristics rather than along the lines of the characteristics
themselves.
Their thinking about the environment leads them to view
whole groups of attributes in a subjective way.( e.g. good or bad,
desirable or undesirable, etc.),
and to assume certain relationships
which may not hold true for specific clients. If
architects are to
design spaces more in line with the needs of their users, they should
be made aware of the possibility that their subjective
generalizations
run counter to the laymen's more balanced, objective image of the environment.
-46Toward this goal, it
designers,
is
strongly recommended that architects,
and planners employ the Repertory Grid Test for themselves
and for their clients to determine specific differences in their
respective systems of important environmental categories before
projects even enter the planning stage. The author believes that, with
sophisticated analysis, the two hours spent taking the Repertory Grid
Test could prove more fruitful than weeks of give-and-take
discussion.
Ideally, some kind of experimental situation could be set up wherein
architects using the test in their professional-client relationship
could be compared with a control group of architects not using the
test. A comparison of the inputs and final outputs and evaluations
between the two groups might be an important step toward the construction of environments which better complement human behavior and
emotion.
Bibliography
Datatext,
Armor, D.,
forthcoming, 1972.
Attneave, F., Applications of Information Theory to Psychology,
New York, Holt Rinehart, and Winston, 1959.
Bannister, D., and Mair, J., The Evaluation of Personal Constructs,
London, Academic Press, 1968.
Craik, K., "The Comprehension of the Everyday Physical Environment,"
Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 34:1, Jan., 1968.
Harrison, J., and Darre, P.,"Personal Construct Theory in the
Measurement of Environmental Images:Problems and Methods,"
Environment and Behavior, 3:4, Dec.1971.
Hershberger, R. , "A study of Meaning in Architecture," in Sanoff, H.,
(ed.) EDRA 1, 1969.
,
"Toward a Set of Semantic Scales to Measure Meaning of
Architectural Environments", in Mitchell, J., (ed.), Environmental Design: Research and Practice, University of California
at Los.Angeles, 1972.
Hollingshead, A., The Two Factor Index of Social Position, unpublished
manuscript, New Haven, 1965.
Honikman, B., "An Investigation of the Relationship Between the Construing of the Environment and its Physical Form", in Mitchell
J., (ed.),Environmental Design:Research and PracticeUniversity
of California at Los Angeles, 1972.
Howard, R., Mlynarski, F., and Sauer, G.Jr.,"A Comparitive Analysis
of Affective Responses to Real and Represented Environments,"
(ed.),Environmental Design: Research and
in Mitchell, J.,
Practice, University of California at Los Angeles, 1972.
Ittelson, W., Rivilin, L., and Proshansky, H., "The Use of
Behavioral Maps in Environmental Psychology, in Environmental
Psychology,- New York, Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1970.
Johnson, " Student Perceptions of Residence Hall Environments",
unpublished Doctoralthesis, Oklahoma State University, 1968.
Kelly, G., The Psychology of Personal Constructs, New York, W.W.
Norton and Co., 1955.
Leff, H.S., "Context, Psychiatric Diagnosis and Language," application for research grant, Massachusetts Mental Health Center,
1969.
, and Rees, J., MJA: A Program for MJA of Grid Data, Boston
1972.
-48Lynch,
K.,
The Image of the City,
Cambridge,
M. I. T. Press,
1970.
Miller, G., "The Magical Number Seven plus or minus Two: Some Limits
on our capacity for information precessing," Psychological
Review, 63:180.
Osgood, C., Suci, G., and Tannebaum, P., The Measurement of Meaning,
Urbana, University of Illinois
Press, 1957.
Perin,
C.,
With Man in
Mind,
Cambridge,
M.I.T.
Press,
1970.
"Ecological Correlations and the Behavior of Individuals'
Robinson, A.,
American Sociological Review, 15:251.
"A Self-Administering Scale for M.easuring Intellectual
Shipley, W.,
Impairment and Deterioration," The Journal of Psychology, 1940,
9: 371.
Siegel, S., Nonparametric Statistics for the Behavioral
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Wurman,
R.,
Making the City Observable,
Cambridge,
Sciences,
M.I.T.
Press,
1971.
-49Appendix A-
Sample Rating Sheet
Characterization #:
17
A clean bright
lace
(vs. a dirty, dim place)
ENVIRONXENT NO,
RATING
I
+
2
4+
5
+
6
+
8+
9
10
it
+
12
+
13
14
+
15
.
16+
+
/
18
+
19
+
20
-
-50Appendix B
Hershberger's
( 1972 ) Descriptors of Architectural Meanin
and Representative Scales
1.AESTHETIC:
Unique-Common
2.FRIENDLINESS:
Friendly-Hostile
3. ORGANIZATION:
Ordered-Chaotic
4.POTENCY:
Rugged-Delicate
5.SPACE:
Loose-Compact
6.ORNATE:
Ornate-Plain
7. COLORING:
Colorful-Subdued
8.NEAT1ESS:
Clean-Dirty
9. SIZE:
Large-Small
10. TEMPERATURE:
Warm-Cool
ll.LIGHTING:
Light-Dark
12.PRIVACY:
Private-Public
13.SHAPE:
Angled-Curved
14.VENTILATION:
Drafty-Stuffy
15.NOISE:
Quiet-Noisy
16.RIGIDITY:
Rigid-Flexible
17.PORMAL:
Formal-Casual
18.TEXTURE:
Rough-Smooth
19. TIME:
Old-New
20.UTILITY:
Useful-Useless
-51Appendix C
Highly Loading Constructs
For Factors (By Subject)
Subject #1
Factor 2
Factor 1
-949 warm and familiar
929 like to take people here
-
929 pleasing color
949 feel solitary here
902 like to look up here
(at arch)
912 my friends frequent here
894 only go here when
necessary
867 think of here as a place
rather than a person
-748
don't recognize people here
886 always learn something
here
564 place with my own personal
801 like to go heregood feelings
544 pleasant noises
781 interesting things to
look at
-
-
779 cold, unemotional
space.
-
520 interesting things to look
at
517 like to talk to people here
visually and sensually
778 photogenic
773 interested in learning
history and planning
of this place
-632
resent the way this
place is
602 pleasant noises
564 like to walk here
556 enjoy eating here.
Factor
3
827 like to live here
818 place represented by
physical objects in my
home
694 like to talk to people
here
559 enjoy eating here
Factor 4
891 think of possible improvements
in this place when I'm here
516 resent the way this place
is
Factor 5
Factor 6
853 can sing without feeling
self-conscious here
807 think of my family here
-555 interested in learning
history of this place
Factor 7
-
880 banks prominent here
physically
-529 well-designed
walking space
Subject #2
Factor 1
Factor 2
901 people"put on a show"
here to impress other
people
932 place with "class"- cool
-727 architecturally
interesting
844 like place
820 excitement here
775 good place
709 shopping area
-588 planned area
Factor 3
Factor 4
761 office business done
here
781 tall, massive
757 serious, intellectual
729 institutional
690 one only goes here sometimes
-743 easy to utilize
Factor 5
Factor 6
648 transport place
648 easy to utilize
-53Factor 7
634 youth place- politics
and style
Subject #3
Factor 1
933 noisy, .worldly
activity
893 busy place
-
840 clean air
Factor 2
49 young people here
-837 sterile, non-cultural
764 like this place
511 product here new-
794 don't trust people here
690 get excercise here
679 feel "cooped-up"
here
Factor 3
852 work done here
Factor 4
-855
old atmosphere
814 foreign-type place
571 "big-city" atoms.,
problems
545 culturally rich
Factor 5
779 good place
680 can learn and think here
652 feel at ease here
606 easy to utilize
Factor 6
-912 height, above ground
-54Subject #4
Factor 1
Factor 2
854 good place
815 might find tourists here
834 frequented by higher
536 easy to utilize
economic status
-730 place "seen better days"
Factor 3
Factor 4
-911 place created by
public financing
925 standard conservative
architecture
-654 local landmark
555 quiet
Factor 6
902 easy place to get lost in
-577
place didn't look
885 exchange of $ integral to
places function
anything like it does
now twenty years ago
Factor 7
-809 little greenery
-634 auto traffic
555 quiet
Subject
#5
Factor 1
Factor 2
-927 designed A Priori
unalterable place
897 easy to utilize
827 place took shape
over long time
-733 work place
561 like
-777 myth of happiness via
consumption here
706 good urban env.
694 like
694 good
561 good
P
-55533 personal env.
-547 auto-shaped place
Factor 3
Factor 4
-874 public transport place
906 outdoor, non-urban
-792 people share activities
here- collectivism tolerated
671 auto-shaped
Rotated
Subject 46
Factor 1
Factor 2
885 functionally acceptable
922 people live here
-885 dislike place
815 24-hour place
-885 degeneration of
human expression
-879 little consideration
for people's needs
and wants
859 pedestrian comfort
-837 unpleasant in
off-hours
805 architecturally good
626 old, personal, human
Factor 3
Factor 4
893 place in motion
(vs. static)
665 easy to utilize
751 old, falling apart
586 easy to utilize
583 old, personal, human
-56Subject j
Factor 1
Factor 2
-864 go here for function
only
905 open (vs. intimate)
-841 modern
816 transport. place
Factor 3
-877
nonresidential
646 part of my past
901 busy
Factor 4
844 easy to utilize
-509 part of my past
596 trees and gardens
Factor 5
939 good place
895 like
Subject #8
Factor 1
Factor 2
835 easy to utilize
925 high ability to get
involved here
764 good
692 like
Factor 3
-924." empty spaces"
845 high depth of history and
culture
Factor 4
-936 open space
-738 quiet, contemplative
-661 park setting
Factor 5
907 place I want to get out of
-542 park setting
-521 good
F.
-57Subject #9
Factor 1
922 age and history here
Factor 2
-889 no surplus space-
tightly designed
888 unique character
-857 modern, sterile, uniform
-796 place is only a means
of getting somewhere
828 aware here of what's
going on
-820 planned env.
else
758 well-designed space
525 smells important here
Factor 3
Factor 4
943 quiet
842 inhabitants can change
and control env.
-854 high level of activity
665 quiet
545 freedom
540 smells important
Factor
-944
5
confusing place
Factor 6
-931 repetitive clientele
-715 imtimate space
Factor 7
776 space which can be used entirely
Subject
#10
Factor 1
-871 transient clientele
858 institutional-social
beyond original function
Factor 2
862 business area
832 good urban use mix
752 unfriendly urban
-858 too formal and planned
804 relaxing, pleasurable
*1'
-58Factor 3
Factor 4
925 sense of place, human scale
962 easy to uti-ize
857 good
849 like
Subject #11
Factor 1
Factor 2
964 feeling of wanting
something (nothing)
812 place of work
566 chaotic, hysterical
937 good times here
-937 emptiness here
849 like
-824 hollow
698 feeling of being part
of a larger group
-590 grey,depressing
557 rich in detail
Factor 3
Factor 4
865 new, shiny surface
913 noisy
-732 history and memory
-698 timeless, unchanging
732 no sense of community
or belonging
-651 easy to utilize
518 chaotic,
Factor 5
879 I'm my usual self
here
hysterical
Factor 6
-754 man-made
544 like
-502 rich in detail
9
-59Rotated
Subject #12
Factor 1
Factor 2
970 feel good here
845 restful
970 like
817 I think I can have
an effect on this place
774 feel part of community here
-798 noisy
692 privacy
665 an oasis
-557 transportation
749 good
-641 boring
545 place I'd like to see
stay the same
Factor 3
Factor 4
-803 tall place
861 housing place
692 place I use very
often
783 place to make love in
-744 socially mixed
574 easy to utilize
Factor
5
-892 retail facilities
521 transportation
Factor 6
-896 physically differentiated
-602 interesting arch.
Factor 7
868 near mountains
684 country-greenery
-649 cosmopolitan
570 an oasis
Subject #13
Factor 1
Factor 2
921 routes used every day
822 old
--921
place I stayed in a
in a short time
-756
crowded
r
-60774 worked here
-762 only go here for
special occasions
Factor 3
946 tidy, conservative
893 older, richer people
frequent here
#
Subject
743 places influential on me
584 pleasant rural
513 good
Factor 4
833 don't like
-712 unemotional
14
Factor 1
Factor 2
931 like
923 greater security
894 interesting
773 privacy
882 diverse
501 easy to utilize
837 pleasant
816 beautiful
Factor 3
Factor 4
854 place with certain
areas forbidden to
public
878 clean, bright
-640 bad place for meeting
girls
Factor 5
Factor 6
926 natural area
836 good
-510 faster pace of life
678 more freedom
626 air-conditioned
- .61Subject # 15
Factor 1
983 growing, expanding
-983 decaying
Factor 2
-859 concrete
-758 inhospitable
691 like
-768 old
645 greenery
Factor 3
Factor 4
821 easy to utilize
851 cosmopolitan
-739 place a "satellite"
(vs. a center)
Factor
-847
5
sprawling
-718 quiet
Factor 6
876 like
688 closed place
Subject #16
Factor 1
Factor 2
848 comfortable for
lounging, relaxing
915 "Down-to-earth"
774 comfortable
-764 efficient, purposeful
place
"real" place
913 working-class place
-715 younger people here
-590 newly built
-708 threatening
Factor 3
Factor 4
867 overly bright
900 easy to utilize
774 bustling
-673 deteriorating
753 active place
700 can't trust people
here
-538 inspires reverence
Factor 5
-
817
sensual place
Factor 6
846 like
V
/
-62-775 otheir cultures here
524 newly built
1
846 good
-575 cantt trust people here
Subject #17
Factor 1
908 visual continuity
Factor 2
918 dark
908 easy to utilize
698 individual activity
899 good
899 smaller-scale
877 enclosure
853 like
736 natural place
609 complexity
609 soft texture
Factor 3
892 expression of indiv.
identity
642 personal space
500 individual activity
Factor 5
841 autonomous environment
752 complexity
752 soft textured
-718 specific activities here
608 place of rest
576 natural place
Factor 4
720 polluted air
716 a network (vs. specific
space )
-634 natural space
I
U
U
I
-63Rotated
Subject #18
Factor 1
Factor 2
817 easy to utilize
949 transportation
916 commercial
684 clean
676 quiet
Factor 3
-967
Factor 4
844 sidevialks-
like
partly
outdoors
-967 good
753 urban environment
713 relaxation (vs. work)
Factor 5
762 go here by choice
670 place to live
Subject
#
19
Factor 1
883 comfortable
-883 many people here
786 easy to utilize
785 in the country
Factor 2
930 good place to meet someone
737 modern
-654
closed-in place
Factor 3
Factor 4
865 narrow winding streets
948 like
517 plush
920 good
500 near water
-I
-64Factor 5,
833 Dirty
-7 3 6 well organized
543 bad smells
-571 modern
Subject #20
Factor 1
Factor 2
843 liberal culture
840 busy
790 like
766 concrete
741 beautiful
700 poor design
722 good
-508 poor design
503 like to vacation here
Factor 3
906 lots of "action" here.
724 good eating places here
632 easy to utilize
~2
-65Appendix D
Subjects' Factors
(in order of percentage variance accounted for)
Factors
Subject
Number
1
1) aesthetic, 2) friendliness, 3) residential, 4) good, 5)
freedom, 6) familiarity, 7) public access.
5
1) friendliness, 2) utility, 3) individuality, 4) urban-rural
6
1) friendliness, 2) space, 3) utility, 4) time
7
1) functional, 2) activity level, 3) residential, 4) utility,
5) aesthetic
8
1) utility, 2) friendliness, 3) space, 4) noise, 5) aesthetic
9
1) aesthetic,2) organization, 3) noise, 4) freedom,
6) friendliness
10
1) friendliness, 2) urban-rural, 3) aesthetic, 4) utility
11
1) friendliness, 2) organization, 3)time,4)noise, 5) freedom,
6) natural
12
1) friendliness, 2) privacy, 3) utility, 4) residential,
5) space,
5) public access, 6) aesthetic
17
1) aesthetic, 2) light, 3) individuality, 4) urban-rural,
5) space
LG
2
1) comsumeristic, 2) friendliness, 3) work, 4) size,
access,
6)
utility, 7)
5) public
young
3
1) activity level, 2) friendliness, 3) urban-rural, 4) time
5) friendliness, 6) size
4
1) friendliness, 2) utility, 3) privacy, 4) ornate,
zation, 6) consumeristic, 7) urban-rural
13
1) time, 2) aesthetic,
5) organi-
3) conservative, 4) friendliness
-66subject
number
14
factors
1) aesthetic, 2) privacy, 3) formal, 4) neatness, 5) urbanrural, 6) friendliness
15
1) time, 2) friendliness, 3) utility, 4) urban-rural,
5) space, 6) aesthetic
16
1) friendliness, 2) working class, 3) activity level,
4) utility, 5) sensual, 6) good.
18
1) utility, 2) activity type, 3) aesthetic, 4) urban-rural,
5) friendliness
19
1) friendliness, 2) space, 3)
ization
20
1) friendliness, 2) urban-rural, 3) utility
ornate, 4) aesthetic,
5) organ-