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Investigators probed the effects of casino design on gambler behavior.  Their research, published in JNeurosci determined that “The blinking lights and exciting jingles in casinos may encourage risky decision-making and potentially promote problem gambling behaviour. . . . ‘We found that an individual’s choices were less guided by the odds of winning when the casino-like audiovisual features were present in our laboratory gambling game,’ said . . . the study’s lead author Mariya Cherkasova. ‘Overall, people took more risks when playing the more casino-like games, regardless of the odds.’ . . . [this] study was prompted by earlier UBC research that found rats were more willing to take risks when their food rewards were accompanied by flashing lights and jingles. . . . ‘Using eye-tracker technology, we were able to see that people were paying less attention to information about the odds of winning on a particular gamble when money imagery and casino jingles accompanied the wins,’ said the study’s senior author Catharine Winstanley.”  

“Casino Lights and Sound Encourage Risky Decision-Making.”  2018.  Press release:  The University of British Columbia, https://news.ubc.ca/2018/10/29/casino-lights-and-sounds-encourage-risky-...

Dawson and Sleek review some of the recent research on how quickly times seems to pass in various sorts of places.  As they report, “Compared with participants who completed less awe-inspiring activities, participants in the awe conditions [such as watching awe-inspiring videos . . . [of] waterfalls] reported feeling time passing more slowly. Additional findings . . . suggest that awe caused people to feel more “in the moment” and led them to see time as more abundant.  Nature itself may slow our sense of time. . . . In experiments that included both virtual and actual environments, participants experienced walking through either natural surroundings such as a forest trail or bustling urban locations such as New York City. . . . the participants in the nature condition reported feeling a slower passage of time compared with those in the urban setting. And when the researchers actually took participants for walks in either natural or urban settings, those in the nature condition reported longer objective and subjective perceptions of elapsed time.”

Joe Dawson and Scott Sleek. 2018.  “The Fluidity of Time:  Scientists Uncover How Emotions Alter Time Perception.”  Observer, vol. 31, no. 5, pp. 24-27.

Heller recently discussed the design of healthcare facilities in the Harvard Business Review.  She states that “The size and layout of a room, whether a bed sits in the middle or against a wall (even which wall), how much space is maintained for patients to walk versus how many beds or operating equipment can be accommodated, have not been considered predictors of health outcomes in the past. That’s changing.”  Design principles for effective healthcare environments shared include: “Make sure your vision reflects the ultimate objectives. . . .  Seek input from people who don’t think like you [patients, families, physicians, etc.]. . . . Make the invisible visible [via maps, etc., indicate people who talk to each other and facility layouts, for example] . . . to make sure diverse people are seeing the same thing. . . . Shift[ing] the language . . . from verbal to visual uncovers the hidden dynamics that form our thinking and behavior and unleashes new thinking. . . . Experiment continually. . . . Counterbalance long-term planning through constant experimentation.”

Cheryl Heller. 2018.”How the Architecture of Hospitals Affects Health Outcomes.”  Harvard Business Review (online), https://hbr.org/2018/10/how-the-architecture-of-hospitals-affects-health....

Pearce and Hinds share important insights on effective transitions to open office environments.  Their research focuses on employee place identity, which they define as  “whether employees feel the space aligns with their self-image and enhances their sense of belonging.”  The researchers found, after talking with workers in the United States, France, Israel, India, and China, that “employees who felt a greater sense of place identity . . . experienced the space [a new open office] as more collaborative, social, flexible, energetic, and comfortable, while those who didn’t develop place identity saw the space as noisy and cluttered. Workers who felt a greater personal connection to the space were also more engaged and enthusiastic about their work, believed their communication with colleagues and managers was of higher quality, and felt a greater attachment to the organization.” To build place identity, Pearce and Hinds recommend that the purpose of a new office space design be shared with users prior to moving into the new space, when employees “believed the space was designed to foster creativity, increase collaboration, enhance flexibility, and promote informal communication [workers] had more place identity. . .  when workers were not prepared with a clear vision of the space beforehand, they were more likely to perceive the space as a way to cut costs and expressed more resistance and dissatisfaction.”  To enhance place identity leaders should be positive about the new space and employees should be allowed to customize it, with personal items and by rearranging furniture, for example. With positive leaders and customization, workers voiced more upbeat opinions about concrete aspects of the environment such as its lighting and noise levels.  

Brandi Pearce and Pamela Hinds.  2018.  “How to Make Sure People Won’t Hate Your New Open Office Plan.”  Harvard Business Review (online), https://hbr.org/2018/01/sgc-research-when-moving-to-an-open-office-plan-....