Periodic Reporting for period 1 - RESONANCES (Architectural atmospheRES: the emotiONal impact of ambiANCES measured through conscious, bodily, and neural responses.)
Reporting period: 2021-08-01 to 2023-07-31
Topic:
Our spatial experiences are conditioned and altered by architecture. How we perceive architectural spaces affects our psychophysical wellbeing, behavior, and emotionality. This argument is not a new one. However, we have yet to experimentally consolidate evidence in this regard. Architectural research has started to interact with neuroscientific knowledge by combining their theories and experiment-based investigations. Driven by constant technological progress, their synergy fosters the study of how people perceive, imagine, and interpret the totality of sensory properties that constitute our surroundings. Design expertise can advance into a different dimension, shifting the focus from buildings’ technical performance to people’s emotional experiences, especially given the substantial time spent indoors. The manipulation of ambient conditions (such as lights, textures, materials, and forms) composes what we commonly call “atmosphere.”
Goal:
The RESONANCES project aims to study architectural atmospheres. Performing a series of experiments (based on our conscious experiences, physiological signals, and neural activity), this research intends to analyze our responses to the built environment and observe how interventions in atmospheric qualities can influence them.
Impact:
The value of this MSCA project lies in the opportunity to assess — through neuroscientific criteria and methodology — the existence of a biological basis of atmospheric perception that would explain the link between design variables and altered emotional states. The planned experiments address the current lack of empirical data in elucidating evidence of how built spaces affect us emotionally.
Our spatial experiences are conditioned and altered by architecture. How we perceive architectural spaces affects our psychophysical wellbeing, behavior, and emotionality. This argument is not a new one. However, we have yet to experimentally consolidate evidence in this regard. Architectural research has started to interact with neuroscientific knowledge by combining their theories and experiment-based investigations. Driven by constant technological progress, their synergy fosters the study of how people perceive, imagine, and interpret the totality of sensory properties that constitute our surroundings. Design expertise can advance into a different dimension, shifting the focus from buildings’ technical performance to people’s emotional experiences, especially given the substantial time spent indoors. The manipulation of ambient conditions (such as lights, textures, materials, and forms) composes what we commonly call “atmosphere.”
Goal:
The RESONANCES project aims to study architectural atmospheres. Performing a series of experiments (based on our conscious experiences, physiological signals, and neural activity), this research intends to analyze our responses to the built environment and observe how interventions in atmospheric qualities can influence them.
Impact:
The value of this MSCA project lies in the opportunity to assess — through neuroscientific criteria and methodology — the existence of a biological basis of atmospheric perception that would explain the link between design variables and altered emotional states. The planned experiments address the current lack of empirical data in elucidating evidence of how built spaces affect us emotionally.
So far, the RESONANCES project has achieved most of the preset deliverables and milestones to study emotional responses to architectural spaces:
1. The MSCA fellow improved her theoretical groundwork to advance with (neuro)physiological experimentation by building archives of bibliographical quotes and references, disseminating publications, and fostering research networks.
2. Working in the interdisciplinary domain of architecture and neuroscience, collaborating with design experts and scientists, and performing theoretical and experimental investigations, the MSCA fellow formalized an architectural theory concerning atmospheric perception.
3. Affect-based stimuli specifically conceived to examine architectural spaces are missing. The RESONANCES project crafted and tested ATLAS, a database of visual atmospheric stimuli. It collects a series of spatial patterns born from a systematic selection of generators of atmosphere. Generators of atmosphere are architectural features designed to afford atmospheric effects (such as lights, colors, materials, and proportions). ATLAS is an open-access tool that supports researchers interested in studying emotional reactions to architectural configurations by providing reliable, standardized, and reproducible stimuli available as images, videos, and VR models.
4. The MSCA fellow designed and performed a physiological signal-based experiment to recognize and measure atmospheric emotions by combining first-person approaches (self-report questionnaires) and third-person methodologies (heart rate, electrodermal activity, skin temperature, and eye movement monitoring).
5. Results collected through behavioral and physiological tests will generate open-access databases addressing the current lack of empirical data.
6. Competence acquired in analyzing atmospheric dynamics from a (neuro)physiological perspective is shared via (co-)authored conference attendances, seminars with graduate students, and peer-reviewed publications.
7. The RESONANCES project advanced expertise in atmospheric design and phenomenography, promoted neuroscientific interest and training for architecture students, incentivized research-informed design approaches, and set up an international research network.
1. The MSCA fellow improved her theoretical groundwork to advance with (neuro)physiological experimentation by building archives of bibliographical quotes and references, disseminating publications, and fostering research networks.
2. Working in the interdisciplinary domain of architecture and neuroscience, collaborating with design experts and scientists, and performing theoretical and experimental investigations, the MSCA fellow formalized an architectural theory concerning atmospheric perception.
3. Affect-based stimuli specifically conceived to examine architectural spaces are missing. The RESONANCES project crafted and tested ATLAS, a database of visual atmospheric stimuli. It collects a series of spatial patterns born from a systematic selection of generators of atmosphere. Generators of atmosphere are architectural features designed to afford atmospheric effects (such as lights, colors, materials, and proportions). ATLAS is an open-access tool that supports researchers interested in studying emotional reactions to architectural configurations by providing reliable, standardized, and reproducible stimuli available as images, videos, and VR models.
4. The MSCA fellow designed and performed a physiological signal-based experiment to recognize and measure atmospheric emotions by combining first-person approaches (self-report questionnaires) and third-person methodologies (heart rate, electrodermal activity, skin temperature, and eye movement monitoring).
5. Results collected through behavioral and physiological tests will generate open-access databases addressing the current lack of empirical data.
6. Competence acquired in analyzing atmospheric dynamics from a (neuro)physiological perspective is shared via (co-)authored conference attendances, seminars with graduate students, and peer-reviewed publications.
7. The RESONANCES project advanced expertise in atmospheric design and phenomenography, promoted neuroscientific interest and training for architecture students, incentivized research-informed design approaches, and set up an international research network.
Progress beyond the state of the art:
The RESONANCES project tests an unprecedented, interdisciplinary approach to integrate theoretical considerations about architectural atmospheres with quantitative methods purposely designed to assess our emotional responses to space. We use a neuroscience-informed methodology combining self-report procedures with nonconscious measures of autonomic and central nervous system activity.
Expected outcomes:
1. Publish scientific papers that provide an overview of the potential benefits and limitations of a neuroscientific approach to architecture focusing on people’s emotional experiences and atmospheric design processes. The MSCA fellow investigates how some design parameters supposed to be “generators of atmosphere” (such as forms, lights, and materials) emotionally affect our spatial encounters.
2. Create a database of visual atmospheric stimuli (ATLAS): namely, a series of spatial patterns originating from a systematic selection of generators of atmosphere. These patterns describe specific combinations of generators of atmosphere on basic building units (rooms and corridors), used as neutral baselines.
3. Design a physiological signal-based testing protocol to evaluate whether and, if so, how atmospheric architectural features affect our emotions.
4. Design a neurophysiological signal-based testing protocol to evaluate whether and, if so, how atmospheric architectural features affect our emotions.
Potential impacts:
Besides crucial effects on the MSCA fellow's growth and career, the RESONANCES project inspires that slice of the architectural community craving a more evidence-based approach and believing neuroscience can provide it. Our research contributes to bridging the gap, translating neuroscientific insights and acquired knowledge about how the human body and emotions interact with the built environment into design principles customizable according to the specific project, context, and inhabitant.
The RESONANCES project tests an unprecedented, interdisciplinary approach to integrate theoretical considerations about architectural atmospheres with quantitative methods purposely designed to assess our emotional responses to space. We use a neuroscience-informed methodology combining self-report procedures with nonconscious measures of autonomic and central nervous system activity.
Expected outcomes:
1. Publish scientific papers that provide an overview of the potential benefits and limitations of a neuroscientific approach to architecture focusing on people’s emotional experiences and atmospheric design processes. The MSCA fellow investigates how some design parameters supposed to be “generators of atmosphere” (such as forms, lights, and materials) emotionally affect our spatial encounters.
2. Create a database of visual atmospheric stimuli (ATLAS): namely, a series of spatial patterns originating from a systematic selection of generators of atmosphere. These patterns describe specific combinations of generators of atmosphere on basic building units (rooms and corridors), used as neutral baselines.
3. Design a physiological signal-based testing protocol to evaluate whether and, if so, how atmospheric architectural features affect our emotions.
4. Design a neurophysiological signal-based testing protocol to evaluate whether and, if so, how atmospheric architectural features affect our emotions.
Potential impacts:
Besides crucial effects on the MSCA fellow's growth and career, the RESONANCES project inspires that slice of the architectural community craving a more evidence-based approach and believing neuroscience can provide it. Our research contributes to bridging the gap, translating neuroscientific insights and acquired knowledge about how the human body and emotions interact with the built environment into design principles customizable according to the specific project, context, and inhabitant.