Cognitive and perceptual influences of architectural and urban environments with an emphasis on the experimental procedures and techniques
With the expansion of urban life and technological development, human interaction with civil environments became inescapable. Yet, less is known about the psychological and cognitive consequences of human contact with buildings, constructions, and urban environments. In this study, we propose a systematic review of the recent attempts and experimental studies elaborating upon the emotional and perceptual influences of architectural environments on the human brain with an emphasis on the experimental procedures and techniques. To do so, the primary experimental studies were selected among the recent peer-reviewed literature, based on the PRISMA systematic review protocol. The pruned experimental articles contain a wide range of techniques and recording instruments for quantification of behavior and brain activities including Electroencephalography (EEG), eye tracking, functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) techniques, and psychological measurements. We categorized the task-space of selected articles based on the environment and its stimuli properties into six subfields of “interior design”, “urban design”, “formal and spatial organization”, “facade design”, “energy and building”, and “natural scene”. Following this context-based categorization, the distribution of employed recording techniques was distinguished for each task-space division. Accordingly, more than 50 percent of the experimental studies were incorporated into the first two divisions. Surprisingly, our survey indicates there is a lack of multidisciplinary studies for the “Formal and Spatial Organization” category despite the obvious effects of the environment’s spatial organization on the occupant’s behavior, emotions, and performance. Among the existing literature, the EEG recording was the most frequently employed neuroimaging technique due to the technical efficacy of its recording setup and the high temporal resolution of its electrophysiological signals. In contrast, the fMRI studies were scarce probably because of restrictions in the implementation of some of the space-tasks. Although fMRI techniques have low temporal resolutions, this limitation does not make an issue in architectural tasks, where the temporal dynamics of the task have a slow pace. Moreover, the implication of fMRI imaging can provide higher spatial resolutions comparing to EEG techniques. Higher spatial resolutions are essential for advanced studies in the field of neurobehavioral architecture as it can lead us toward precise localization of brain circuits involved in complex neuro-architecture tasks. The extracted distribution of neuroimaging techniques suggests consideration of fMRI and eye-tracking techniques for future studies. In this review with extracting distribution of current literature and employed techniques, we provided an experimental framework for the field of neuroarchitecture and we aimed to shed light on vacancies and gaps that need to be filled in future studies.
