Neuroscience + Architecture:

What happens in the Brain in Space and Architecture?

KAIST

바이오 및 뇌공학과

정재승

[Case Report I]

Leon Festinger: MIT dorm analysis

• Social Psychologist ‘Leon Festinger’ investigated MIT students lived in campus Dorm.

• He investigated ‘the relationship between the structure of the dorm building (the location of room and distance between rooms) and the friendship of the students.’

Proximity was ‘the best predictor of friendship’

[friendships of couples in students housing at MIT] • 65% of friends lived in the same building 44% next door, 22% two doors apart, 10% on opposite ends of the hall • Near stairwells on the 1st floor reported more 2nd floor friends

that other 1st floor residents.

[Case Report II] Sanatorium for Alzheimer patients

• It is here that the overall design can have a significant effect on our moods and by extension, our health. In fact, attention to these details has been found to have a positive impact on patients suffering from Alzheimer's disease.

• We need to explain how Alzheimer’s patients need visual clues like pictures and objects to connect them with their lives, and the same clues aid the average homeowner in feeling grounded.

• Rearranging one’s decor is actually a healthy habit that keeps your environs from going stale.

Deep Understanding of Humans

Clues and Insight from human brain

What is NeuroArchitecture?

• Neuroarchitecture is a discipline that seeks to explore ‘the relationship between neuroscience and the design of buildings and other man made structures’ that make up the artificially created environment that most human beings live within.

The premise of Neuroarchitecture

• Neuroarchitecture is based on the premise that artificial elements added by humanity have a significant impact on the function of the brain and nervous system.

• The impact may not be overt at first, and could in fact affect changes to the way the nervous system functions over an extended period of time.

Neurotransmitter monitoring

Eye-tracking technique

• Eye tracking is the process of measuring either the point of gaze ("where we are looking") or the motion of an eye relative to the head.

• An eye tracker is a device for measuring eye positions and eye movement, particularly rotations of the eyes.

BCI_Clip_Final.wmv

Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture (ANFA)

Jonas Salk (1914 – 1995): The discovery of

vaccine for poliomyelitis

For more creativity, Raise the roof

• Meyers-Levy et al. The Influence of Ceiling Height: The Effect of Priming on the Type of Processing People Use, Journal of Consumer Behavior (2007)

NIH-supported Neuroarchitecture studies

• In 2003, AIA (American Institute of Architects) helped two unprecedented research initiatives, one with the Salk Institute and the other with the U.S. General Services Administration and the National Institutes of Health.

• They are intended to show empirically that different physical environments affect brain activity and even change brain structure.

• The projects, though in their infancy, could have a major impact on how the workplace, buildings and even towns and cities are planned, designed and retrofitted, say sources.

What we could learn from Neuroscience for Architecture?

The Influence of Ceiling Height

• When people are in a room with high ceilings, it activates sections of ‘the right brain’ associated with freedom and abstract thinking.

• In low-ceilinged rooms, ‘more constrained thinking’ is brought to the fore.

• “There’s a preference in terms of real estate for high ceilings and it‚ and not only the sense of power and wealth that conveys but also vertical space could have a beneficial mental influence,” she says.

• Many experiments have been made demonstrating that ‘colored walls’ impact on physiology and specially in stress mechanisms (Nicholas Humphrey, Colour and brightness preferences in monkeys. Nature, 229, 615-617, 1971.)

Neuroarchitecture: Blue Engenders Creativity

• The New York Times reports on how color can influence creativity based on a Science article about researchers at the University of British Columbia who conducted tests with 600 people to see how cognitive performance varies when people see red or blue.

Sharp Corners

• Neuroscientist Moshe Bar provided some support for this theory in his 2007 study in which subjects again viewed a series of neutral objects this time, while their brains were scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging.

• They found that the amygdala, which is involved in fear processing and emotional arousal, was more active when people were looking at objects with sharp angles.

Green design: Biophilia hypothesis

• The “biophilia hypothesis” suggests that humans are predisposed to function better in green spaces.

• In most, the person preparing the food at the sink, stove or counter has to face away from his or her family or guests, decreasing sociability in what should be a social zone.

• “As a result the brain continues to produce adrenalin and cortisol, the hormones associated with fear and anxiety,”

• “Whereas if they are facing into the room then oxytocin, the bonding hormone, and serotonin, associated with relaxation and enjoyment, are released.”

Piano stairs - TheFunTheory.com - Rolighetsteorin.se.flv

Nudge

• ([nudged], [nudging]) to poke or push someone gently, especially with the elbow, to get attention, etc.

• By a nudge we mean anything that influences our choices.

신경건축학연구회

(Neuroscience + Architecture)

Neuroscience + Architecture

= Humans