ABSTRACT
Objectives: The research paper establishes the impact of spatial stimulus on human cognition and emotion by studying environmental events as cues to understand how people perceive spatial qualities. The medium of film to implement visually disruptive events was used in the research to find the relationship between the subjective evaluation of space and emotional responses. Method: Ninety participants participated in watching three films showcasing unexpected spatial stimuli, thus impacting their psychological state. Standard questionnaires involving Aesthetic chills and The Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM) model were used to capture emotional responses, and Normalized Accumulated Quality (NAQ) model was used to receive space quality assessments. The Pearson correlation coefficient was subsequently used to find the association of chills and The SAM with NAQ. Univariate and multivariate regression models were also conducted to find the impact of emotional responses on NAQ. Results: A significant association of NAQ with chills (p-value: 0.001), pleasure (p-value <0.001), arousal (p-value: 0.016), and dominance (p-value: 0.015) was witnessed in film 1. In film 2, NAQ was significantly associated with pleasure (p-value <0.001), while in film 3, NAQ was highly associated with arousal (p-value: 0.043). According to the adjusted impact of variables on NAQ in film 1, significant impacts of chills (p-value: 0.028), arousal (p-value: 0.117), pleasure (p-value <0.001), and dominance (p-value: 0.113) on NAQ were observed. In film 2, pleasure (p-value <0.001) and dominance (p-value: 0.113) impacted NAQ using the univariate model, while only pleasure had an impact on NAQ in the multivariate model. In film 3, arousal was the only variable to impact NAQ (p-value: 0.043) in a univariate model. In regression analyses, higher slopes were witnessed for models in film 1. Conclusion: The experiment highlighted that using affect-based video clips can help us capture the relationship between emotional responses and perceived quality of space. The appearance of spatial stimuli can engage learning, expectation, and attention, leading to a superior improvement of cognitive ability and mental health in space. This level of understanding can help design a more sustainable place.
ABSTRACT
Perceptions of different environments are different for different people. An abstract designed environment, with a degree of freedom from any visual reference in the physical world requests a completely different perception than a fully or semi-designed environment that has some correlation with the physical world. Maximal evidence on the manner in which the human brain is involved/operates in dealing with such novel perception comes from neuropsychology. Harnessing the tools and techniques involved in the domain of neuropsychology, the paper presents nee evidence on the role of pre-central gyrus in the perception of abstract spatial environments. In order to do so, the research team developed three different categories of designed environment with different characteristics: (1) Abstract environment, (2) Semi-designed environment, (3) Fully designed environment, as experimental sample environments. Perception of Fully-designed and semi-designed environments is almost the same, [maybe] since the brain can find a correlation between designed environments and already experienced physical world. In addition to this, the response to questionnaires accompanied with a list of buzzwords that have been provided after the experiments, also describe the characteristics of the chosen sample environments. Additionally, these results confirm the suitability of continuous electroencephalography (EEG) for studying Perception from the perspective of architectural environments.
