Psychological responses to natural patterns in architecture

A Comparison of the Spatial Arrangement Method and the Total-Set Pairwise Rating Method for Obtaining Similarity Data in the Conceptual Domain

“…In Study 3, we will investigate whether SpAM can also be used to obtain representative individual level data by presenting participants with multiple subsets of stimuli to organize spatially in terms of similarity. Such a procedure has been used before to allow participants to convey information beyond two dimensions or when the number of stimuli did not fit onto a single screen (e.g., Berman et al, 2014;Coburn et al, 2019;Goldstone, 1994;Horst & Hout, 2015; see also Kriegeskorte & Mur, 2012). In studies 1 and 2, we found that averaging the data from several SpAM participants yielded average dissimilarity data sets that were comparable to the average PRaM data.…”

“…For instance, Verheyen et al show that these factors are less of a concern for simple perceptual stimuli than they are for complex conceptual stimuli (see also below). Moreover, they can be alleviated by providing participants with instructions or examples on how to convey featural information or additional dimensions in their two-dimensional configurations (Hout & Goldinger, 2016) or by having participants arrange subsets of the stimuli on subsequent trials so that they may convey additional information (e.g., Berman et al, 2014;Coburn et al, 2019;Goldstone, 1994;Horst & Hout, 2015). In the latter case, the context shifts from trial to trial, allowing more complex relationships between stimuli to be captured (see also below).…”

The Cognitive-Emotional Design and Study of Architectural Space: A Scoping Review of Neuroarchitecture and Its Precursor Approaches

“…Among these are isovist analysis, the volume of space visible from a given point in space [ 96 ], and the application of artificial intelligence to distinguish formal categories, based on different features [ 97 ]. The recent mathematical-geometric analysis of architectural images is also noteworthy [ 98 , 99 , 100 ], through its use in architectural spaces of spatial metrics, such as edge density (number of straight and curved edges), fractal dimension (visual complexity), entropy (randomness), and colour metrics, such as hue (the dominant wavelength), saturation (the intensity of colour), and brightness (the darkness of colour). Hence, the geometric approach has not been abandoned.…”

An algorithm to minimize the number of blocks in incomplete block designs

“…Matlab script, Python code, a Windows executable, and a web application to generate experimental designs are available at http://justinmacdonald.net/ projects. In fact, we have already taken advantage of our software in order to construct an experimental design for a published research project (Coburn et al, 2019).…”