Situation-Effective Soundscaping
Wherever we are and whatever we’re doing, most of us are pulling acoustical information into our
Any Designed Environment
Cleanliness: Implications
Information processed through multiple sensory channels is integrated to determine if somewhere o
Darkness, Lightness, and Helping Others
A complex relationship, explained
Lines and Luxury
Vertical beats horizontal
Anthropology for Architects: Social Relations and the Built Environment
Packed with valuable design-related insights
Smartphones and Self-Disclosure (04-27-20)
Melumad and Meyer, in an article published in the Journal of Marketing, detail how smart phones influence our willingness to provide personal information about ourselves. The researchers determined that “people are more willing to reveal personal information about themselves online using their smartphones compared to desktop computers. . . . Melumad explains that ‘Writing on one’s smartphone often lowers the barriers to revealing certain types of sensitive information for two reasons. . .
Consequences of Carbon Dioxide Levels (04-24-20)
Researchers continue to investigate the effects of carbon dioxide levels on human thinking and behavior. Karnauskas, Miller, Schapiro have determined that “As the 21st century progresses, rising atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations will cause urban and indoor levels of the gas to increase, and that may significantly reduce our basic decision-making ability and complex strategic thinking. . . .
Coffee Drinking as a Multi-Sensory Experience (04-23-20)
Spence and Carvalho add to the interesting body of research linking sensory experiences. Via a literature review focused on factors related to drinking coffee they found, for example, that “Those who liked strong coffee tended to drink more under conditions where the ambient lighting was bright (two 500 watt halogen lamps), while those who self-reported preferring weaker coffee drank more under dim conditions instead (one 60-watt incandescent bulb) [Gal, Wheeler, and Shiv 2007]. . . . Knoferle (2012) . . .
Viewing Art: Effects of Art Size (04-22-20)
Estrada-Gonzalez and teammates studied the effects of painting size on museum visitors’ viewing behaviors. A literature review completed by the team before they began to collect data revealed that “Seidel and Prinz (2018) . . . found that merely altering physical scale of a painting (small vs. large) influenced aesthetic judgment. Participants evaluated larger reproductions more positively, regardless of whether the painting was high in complexity (Picasso’s Three Musicians) or low (Joan Miro’s Blue II). . . .
Cross Cultural Music (04-21-20)
Beier and colleagues researched how culture influences responses to music. They report on “measure[ing] chill responses, sudden increases in emotional arousal, through self-report and skin conductance measures. Excerpts of Western classical, traditional Chinese, and Hindustani classical music were presented to 3 groups of participants, each familiar with one of these styles. Participants felt a similar number of chills to both familiar and unfamiliar musical styles, but significantly fewer chills to scrambled music, which acted as a control.
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