Perceptual tuning of a Simple box Sonit Bafna Anna Losonczi John Peponis Georgia Institute of Technology College of Architecture, Atlanta Georgia Space Syntax Symposium 8 Santiago Chile 2012

Proposition

Architectural interest is aroused when a setting is able to inspire a richness and variety of percepts and alternative visual and spatial interpretations. In a carefully designed space, even subtle changes in location can lead to a rich and meaningful variation in perception.

Case Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts St. Louis, Missouri

Tadao Ando, Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, St Louis, Missouri Richard Serra, Joe

Tadao Ando, Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, St Louis, Missouri

The Experimental Set-Up

Hypothesis The same space visualized from a set of photographs taken from different vantage points will be described in different ways depending on the vantage points.

Selection of vantage points

Views from the five vantage points were combined to produce four paths, each made of a combination of three views. Paths A 135 B 145 C 235 D 245

Paths A 135 B 145 C 235 D 245

Selection of Subjects Three categorical variables (2 control) Path: A / B / C / D Sex: Female (F) / Male (M) Background: Design (V) / Non-Design (N) (4 X 4) + 2 = 18 subjects / path 4 path (A, B, C, D) 18 X 4 path = 72 subjects 72 subjects X 5 = 360 sentences

Data

Subject response sheet

Subjects’ verbal responses were restricted to a specific format offering a choice of four verbs; each response contained at least one prepositional phrase relating the verb to an element or area within the given view.

Sample of compiled data with some basic analysis

Sample of coded data showing counts of relations between elements (used for result #2 below)

Numbers of prepositions appearing in sentences for each path

Results

The subjects assigned to path D produced sentences with more prepositional phrases compared to those assigned other paths. (For instance: I am standing in the middle of the pathway along the window that I am looking through and I see the water surrounding.) 1. Prepositional phrases per sentence F=7.57 N=360 P < 0.001

In comparison to other paths, B elicited many more sentences with diffuse attention; diffuse attention is determined by the presence of prepositional phrases that take as objects broad spatial areas, rather than specific objects. 2. Diffuse versus focal attention F=3.06 N=360 P =

Path D is associated with better distributed attention across the entire perceptual field; subjects assigned to path D picked out objects across field of view in a higher proportion of sentences 3. Distribution of attention across field F=3.65 N=360 P =0.0168

Discussion

What seems to have distinguished the paths is not so much the overall geometry of the paths, but the difference in the overall complexity of the spatial map that each path supported. It is not just the information present in each view by itself, but rather the relation between the information provided in each view that influences which element will primarily earn the viewer’s attention; the elements reported in each view carried differential informational content…

… Given that so little discernible detail is available of the window and pool behind it, from vantage point 2, we hypothesized that subjects on path D (vantage points 2 and 4) would tend to report the window and pool much more than those on path B (vantage points 1 and 4). On path D (245) 17 subjects out of 18 reported the water and window, whereas only 10 subjects of the 18 assigned to path B (145), reported these elements

First, our experiments have thrown some light on how cognition is contingent upon a structure of experience; or, put differently, how the structure of a retrieved description is contingent upon the spatial structure of experience within a constant objective structure of space. Second, we have perhaps found some insight into how subtle design can activate alternative modes of experience and attention, leading to rich descriptions. Sonit Bafna Anna Losonczi John Peponis Georgia Institute of Technology College of Architecture, Atlanta Georgia