Lecture 6: Environmental Perception and Restorative Environment Flashcards
What is environmental perception?
The awareness of, or feelings about, the environment, and as the act of apprehending the environment by the senses
What is the ‘probabilistic’ lens model (Brunsiwck et al., 1903-1955)
A statistical approach that uses the effect of random occurrences or actions to forecast the possibility of future results - theory of probabilistic function
Functionalist: We need to understand the environment in order to function effectively
Probabilistic: Cues from the environment only ‘imperfectly’ useful
The model is way of thinking about describing the relations between the environment and the behavior of organisms in the environment
Critical eval for the lens model?
It’s difficult to use in environmental psychology as it’s difficult to know the true state of the environment
Useful for decision making and diagnosis studies
What is Gibson’s (1904-1979) view of environmental perception?
Gibson is critical of snapshot theories of environmental perception
According to Gibson, perception is direct & less interpretive
Learn what different environments do and what you can do with them
The environment serves functions - becomes transactional
What is affordance theory (1977)?
Affordances are how we perceive environments as ways to afford us our needs
There are things in the environment which allow us to meet our needs - they are very influential in design
Affordance is a characteristic of the object in this case the environment that allows you to do something with it, e.g., shade, food, parking, safe, walking, sitting, activities
What is perceptual dimension?
A feature or a group of features arising from a common quality or theme that represents aspects of the image (shallow dimensions) or physical scene that generated the image (deep dimensions).
What is the relationship between perceptual information and affordances?
When affordances are
perceptible, they offer a direct link between perception
and action; hidden and false affordances lead to mistakes
For example: A door with a handle or a push door communicates different ways a door is opened
What’s the example of a perceived affordance?
Reshaping the holes on bins to match the form of different types of waste
This has been shown to increase recycling levels significantly
By designing where you should recycle different recyclables it improves recycling and correct recycling
What did Duffy et al., (2009) find about perceptual affordances of lids vs no lids
With lids present which match different recycling items, recycling increases
This communicates to the individual that is where you recycle and increases recycling
How does affordance theory relate to architecture?
Anti-homeless architecture - Hostile architecture that prevents homeless people from rough sleeping there
Seating arrangements are very different in different places such as restaurants
Affordance theory: How things are designed show how places want people to use the space
E.g., In McDonalds - fast food, in and out the restaurant where as Starbucks - is a more relaxing environment
How does affordance theory apply to the real world?
It’s not a testable theory but it’s a useful way of looking at human- environment interactions
All about what the environment affords for you
Affordance theory is popular in urban planning
What do different places mean to adolescents in terms of action possibilities?
Lieberg (1995) - Two developmental needs
1. For social interaction
2. To retreat
Adolescents use the environment transitionally
What did Clark et al., (2022) find about adolescents using different spaces?
Location: Guildford
539 participants (11-18yrs)
Ppts are asked how do you use X for X affordance?
E.g., Avoiding people, being yourself, being active etc
Findings: The home environment was for security and ‘friend-retreat’ whereas the neighborhood was for social interaction and retreat
What did Clark & Uzzell (2002) develop?
Developed two scales to enable comparison of two different environments (Neighborhood, School & City)
What is the biophilia hypothesis? (Wilson, 1984)
People have innate affinity with other living things (Biophilia)
Preference for environments that sustain a lot of life
Environments that sustain a lot of ‘survivability’ and evolutionary need
Used as an explanation for why natural environments are preferred over urban ones
Evidence that natural environments have restorative effects/ health benefits
What is the perception of affordance (the design of everyday things) theory? (Norman, 1988)
Norman defines an affordance as something of both actual and perceived properties
The affordance of a ball is both its round shape, physical material, bouncability, etc. (its actual properties) as well as the perceived suggestion as to how the ball should be used (its perceived properties).
What did Tinbergen find about instinct?
Conducted experiments looking at the shapes & configurements of the environment
Do animals have instinctive dislike of certain types of shapes of animals - is this built in or is it from socialization?
Took 5 year old turkey chicks who haven’t seen other turkey chicks and saw if they were scared of different bird shadows
Instinctively they were afraid of bird shadows that saw them as prey
Tinbergen argued that animals come into the world with instincts already adapted to their environments
What is evidence to support ‘circumstantial’ evidence for the biophilia hypothesis?
Ulrich: Environments that can afford food and shelter
Tree shapes, tree groupings, landscapes that sustain animal life, water, spatial openness
What is habitat theory? (Orians & Heerwagen, 1993)
Humans evolved in the African savanna & therefore has become preferred visual landscape
Evolutionary need to like environments with resources (food) & low risk (shelter)
Savanna type landscapes openness & seclusion/shelter
People like trees they can climb in & medium canopy density (to survey environment & to hide in)
Environments that are open but secluded; just as environments they evolved in
What is the prospect- refuge theory (Appleton, 1975)
Derived from habitat theory & info processing theory
The two desires are for opportunity (prospect) and safety (refuge)
Specific circumstances determine preference for landscape
1. Prospect: Panoramas & vistas - open unobstructed views
2. Refuge: hides & shelters
Studied by looking at landscape paintings
What is Berlyne’s formal aesthetic model?
Psychological theory of aesthetics
Abstract psychological characteristics that determine preferences for stimuli/ environments
Environment has collative properties - things we pay attention to such as:
Novelty, surprisingness, incongruity, complexity
Berlyne (1974) study of experimental aesthetics
According to Berlyne we have preference for an environment that has moderate collative properties
Collative properties: stimuli in the environment that forces you to pay attention - any stimuli that is surprising or new
Based on the Yerkes Dodson Law: the relationship between physiological arousal and task performance
What is the Yerkes Dodson law?
Yerkes Dodson Law: performance increases with mental arousal (stress) but only up to a point: when an individuals’ level of stress is too low or too high, their performance deteriorates
You don’t want environments to be too boring too or too threatening
The level of collative properties determines how much you interact with the environment
Distinguished between two types of exploration
1. Diversive exploration: seek of arousal
2. Specific Exploration: Reduce arousal/uncertainty
What is the issue with Berlyne’s formal aesthetic model?
It talks about environmental aesthetic but it’s not really about environment
It’s not clear whether they describe the way it represents how we actually interact with the environment
What is Kaplan & Kaplan’s model of environmental preference? (1987)
Combo of evolutionary & cognitive perspectives
Derived from habitat theory & info processing theory
According to Kaplan’s perceptual model, people like and prefer landscapes based on four predictors: coherence, legibility, complexity, and mystery
Kaplans studies used real life environment pictures - found
that based on real life nature - the more complicated the picture is the more we like it
What are the landscape predictors that Kaplan suggested?
Coherence: Scene hangs together (no congruent elements)
Complexity: Variety of elements
Mystery: Scene contains hidden infomation
Legibility: Degree to which the viewer can predict the content of the scene
What is Kaplans preference framework (1987)?
Humans have a strong desire to make sense & understand & get involved with an environment (Dimension 1)
Environments may offer this promise immediately or for the future (Dimension 2)
Combing understanding/exploring & immediate/future promise results in 2x2 Environmental Preferences Matrix with the 4 collative properties - coherence, complexity, legibility, mystery
What did Stamps (2004) find in their meta - analysis of stimuli?
Aim: estimate the strengths of the relationships between judgments of mystery and amount of light, depth of view, and occlusion, whether visual and locomotive occlusion or just visual occlusion
3 experiments were conducted with totals of 145 respondents and 33 scenes
Light had the largest effect on mystery, followed by occlusion of both vision and locomotion (ability to move from 1 place to another)
Mystery might be a function of vision, not of locomotion
What are the issues with Kaplans environmental preference model?
The evidence for the model of environmental preference is not really there
There is a lack of coherence of correlations
There is not consistent evidence of significant correlations for this model
What is the stress recovery theory (Ulrich)
Exposure to greenery results in less stress (blood pressure, muscle tension, heart rate) within minutes of exposure
Even only watching pictures of greenery reduces stress
What did Ulrich (1991) find regarding recovery from stress in natural and urban environments?
Phase 1: Stress Induction
-Ppts watched a 10- minute film on the prevention of workplace accidents
Phase 2: Restoration
-Ppts were told to relax while looking at a film of
1) Urban Environment - traffic
2) Urban Environment - pedestrian mail
3) Natural Environment - trees & streams of water
Measured BP, SCR, muscle tension
Found nature tends to be lower in intensity and less perceptually jumbled than many urban environments, and therefore has comparatively positive, stress-reducing effects on people
What did Ulrich (1984) find about the effects of nature on recovery from surgery?
Recovery records of gall - bladder surgery patients w/ different beside views
23 matched pairs, randomly assigned to a) room facing brick wall or b) room facing garden
Recovery was faster and more complete when subjects were exposed to natural rather than urban environments
What is the Attention Restoration Theory (ART) (Kaplan, 1995)?
Suggest that there are two types of attention: directed or voluntary attention, used when a task requires deliberate and sustained attention, and involuntary attention, or ‘soft fascination’, which does not require an effort.
After prolonged used of directed attention, we suffer ‘attention fatigue’, with reduced ability to perform cognitive tasks, and increased levels of mental fatigue
Effortless attention or ‘soft fascination’ is capable of restoring our directed attention
What are properties of an attention restoring environment?
Being away: Being in a different setting
Fascination: An effortless way involuntary attention
Extent: Sufficient things go on to sustain attention
Compatibility: The environment should fit with a person’s inclinations and purposes
What does Kaplan argue about the restoration of nature?
Nature is inherently restorative
-Somewhere else (often a preferred holiday destination
-Has many fascinating objects & processes
- has extent; sufficient interesting objects to sustain interaction without boredom
-High in compatibility: biophilia; functioning in natural settings requires less effort than in e.g., Urban environments
How do the stress recovery theory & attention restoration theory compete with eachother?
Ulrich (1991) claims the attention concept is not useful; better task performance due to relaxation?
All settings that afford involuntary attention (being away, fascination, extent, & compatibility) provide restoration
Both theories state the natural environment is good in providing restorative experience
Focus on stress and attention means the 2 theories are complementary
What did Hartig et al., (1991) find about comparing wilderness vacationers with urban vacationers?
Wilderness vacationers were better at proof reading (directed attention) than non-vacationers
Urban & non-vacationers declined in performance
Wilderness vacationers has a lower pretest but high post test happiness scores
Multimethod assessments of restoration consisted of self-reports of affective states, cognitive performance, & physiological measures
Natural environments ARE more restorative
What did Hartig et al., 1991 find about restorative environments?
Respondents randomly assigned to 3 conditions
1. Natural Environment
2. Urban environment
3. Passive relaxation
Measured ppts baseline mood & physiological stress
Intervention: Fatiguing task (Stroop - binary classification)
After the task; 40 min relaxing walk
Follow up measurement of mood & stress
Then proof reading
Results suggest: natural surroundings aid the physical and psychological restoration of people living in cities
Experiments that induce stress should use stress recovery theory
Experiments inducing fatigue should use attention restoration theory
What is the perceptual fluency account? Joye (2007)
Attempts to integrate SRT & ART
Restoration dependent on or by product of ease of visual info processing
Perceptual fluency: the subjective feeling of ease or difficulty while processing perceptual information
Perceptual fluency experienced by positive affect & beauty
Restoration result of undoing process initiated by positive affect
According to Joye, natural environments are more restorative due to their ‘fractal’ nature
What did Van den Berg (2019) find about restorative environments?
An experimental comparison of the restorative impacts of an urban streetscape and three common types of urban park and woodland settings
Stronger recovery from emotional stress on self-reported mood and restorative state in the natural conditions as compared to the urban street condition
No significant differences in recovery among the three natural settings
Restoration in urban green space varies with individuals tress reactivity and perceptions of naturalness
How is green space linked to health (Engman et al., 2019)
Danish study of 900,000 ppts
Levels of green space measured before age 10
Spectrum of psychiatric disorders in adolescence and childhood found
Link between less green space and urbanization remained after adjusting for socioeconomic factors, parental history of MH issues, parental age
What did Pootinga et al., (2021) find about green space and health?
Looked at mean subjective wellbeing & self rated health after the 1st peak of Covid 19 outbreak according to walking distance to green space
Perceived access to public and private green space are linked to better health and wellbeing
Private gardens can compensate for a lack of perceived access to public green spaces
Public green spaces are more protective for those without a private garden
Public and private green space are an essential health resource in times of crisis.
