Distorting the structure of urban space: impacts on human cognition, emotions, and future design
The project will examine how transformations in the geometric structure of space impacts on
memory, emotions, and gestures related to space. Support for the project draw on research teams
in five departments (Experimental Psychology, Architectural Design, Computer Science, The Bartlett
Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, Civil Engineering).
Motivation: Much of the world’s population lives in complex urban environments that are
continually being adapted, rebuilt and, in recent years, rendered into the virtual. Currently, research
examining transformation of the environment is conducted in separate streams by architects,
engineers, computer scientists, and neuroscientists. Our project will, for the first time, integrate
across these disciplines to deliver new insights at the intersection between disciplines.
The students role in the project would be aid the design of large moveable room spaces (~20 x 20
meters) which would be built by professionals in UCL's PAMELA facility and rendered into immersive
virtual reality (VR).
Experimental subjects would be asked to explore and collect objects in the created spaces. After a
short break, they would return to the spaces, some of which would have been geometrically
transformed, others not (providing a control). Volunteers would then have to replace the objects
where they remember previously collecting them. They would also provide ratings and verbal
reports on how they felt about the space and changes to it (e.g. more comfortable, less comfortable)
and would be asked to describe the spaces. We will also ask them to return to their favorite location
in the space where they felt most comfortable or happy. Volunteer’s movements will be tracked
using sensors on them and in the environment.
Analysis of object location memory will help test whether models of spatial memory (e.g. Hartley,
Trinkler, Burgess 2004, Cognition) predict performance in large-scale spaces and immersive VR.
Previous data has only been obtained in small-scale, single room, desk-top VR. Thus, it is important
to test whether models capture more ecologically relevant situations.
Analysis the ratings and reports of subjective experiences will help aid our understanding of how the
geometric structure of space (and its transformation) can affect emotional reactions to spaces. This
will provide new insights aiding the design of future urban spaces.
Analysis of the descriptions of the space and gestures will provide behavioural measures of how
people conceptualise the spaces they inhabit. We are particularly interested in how gestures might
be linked to geometric change and EEG measures.