Question 22- Discuss Methodological Challenges For An Experimental Aesthetics Of Architecture. How Might These Challenges Be Addressed?

Question 1

Ecological validity

Answer 1

-People may have different preferences or answers when in a lab vs in the field

-Vartanian et al (2013):
•Showed PPs rooms of curvilinear or rectilinear rooms and were asked to judge if it was beautiful or ugly, and approachable or avoidable
•Results:
~Curvy rooms = beautiful and approachable
~Rectangle rooms = ugly and avoidable
~fMRI data revealed curvy rooms had higher activations in early visual and reward processing areas

-Experiment conducted in lab so PPs may have different judgements than if they went into the rooms

Question 2

Solutions

Answer 2

-Experiments could be conducted in the actual rooms
•BUT takes more time, more effort and harder to transport fMRI equipment around

-Use virtual reality
•PPs could experience the room without travelling and would be easier to set up fMRI equipment

Question 3

Different preferences with regards to architecture

Answer 3

-Hubbard (1996)
•When asked to sort out 15 examples of architecture based on their own criteria, PPs produced results that had a shared conceptualisation of the stimuli, but also a range of inter-group and inter-individual differences in the interpretation of stimuli

Question 4

Solution of finding common ground

Answer 4

-Experiments start off with a building made of prototypical shapes, such as a square with triangle on top, and then start making the buildings more complex and ambiguous to see when PPs start to dislike the architecture

•PPs could also be asked questions in order to see if perceived meaningfulness of the architecture is better than complexity at predicting the aesthetic preference of stimuli
~E.g. what Martindale (1990) found