Sensory Design Biblio 1
298
Notes to Chapter 3
66. Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, trans. Maria Jolas
(Boston: Beacon Pres,
1969), 6.
3. Sensory Response
that the viewer will,when con-
1. Put differently, there seems to exist an assumption
fronting architectural paradigms, see what ideologically ought to be seen
Hugh Lawson- Tancred (New York:
2. Aristotle, De Anima (On the Soul), trans.
Viking Penguin, 1986), 218, “While the other senses, smell, sight,
and hearing. perceive
but things and anything acquirc that others. makes In contact which will, case it ifit will have be no perception, for the be
through other things;
unable to avoid some
impossible
Scott, The Architecture of Humanism: A Study in the History of Taste
animal be preserved.”
to
3. Geoffrey
(1914; Gloucester, Mass.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1965), 95.
4. Ibid. 173.
5. James J. Gibson, The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems (Boston:
Houghton
Miflin, 1966), 53.
6 This sounds, though one hesitates to say SO, very much like a kind of “physical
gestalt” that is, Gestalt principles applied to the mechanical aspects of the
organism.
7. Gibson, The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems, 33.
8. Eugene V. Walter, Placeways (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,
I988), 135.
9. Paul Zucker, Town and Square (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1970), 6.
10. Arthur I. Rubin and Jacqueline Elder, Building for People: Behavioral Research
Approaches and Directions, special publication 474 (Washington, D.C. National
‘Ston, D.C .: National Bureau
of Standards, 1980), 143.
11. Kurt Kofika, Principles of Gestalt Psychology (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1935),
Io. In this case, the term “good” is taken to mean regular, concise, symmetrical, unified,
harmonious, and simple.
12. David Canter, Psychology for Architects (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1974).
34. As will become clear later in the chapter, other psychologists (Segall et al.) adhere
to precisely the opposite position: that the (cultural) environment actively structures
perception.
13. David Katz, Gestalt Psychology: Its Nature and Signifcance (New York: Ronald
Press, 1950), SI.
14. Wolfgang Köhler, Gestalt Psychology (New York: Liveright, 1947), 103. He goes on
tO argue that this viewpoint would explain why, given a constant local stimulus, local
experience varies when the ambient stimulation is altered. This position contrasts with
that of both the empiricists and S-R theorists, who maintain that sensation is fundamen-
tally a mosaic of information.
15. Ibid., 214. Köhler believes, furthermore, that all these phenomena have a direct
relationship to visual facts. Perhaps so; but it might as wellindicate the degree to which
Gestalt depends on sight factors to infer broader principles.
16. David Levi, “The Gestalt Psychology of Expression in Architecture, .eire in Design-
ing for Hauman Behavion ed. Jon Lang, Charles Burnette, walter Moleski, and David
the could Vachon 17. Deutscher In this (Stroudsburg, the standard Werkbund Bauhaus Pa.: for that mass is, Dowden (under the production notion Gropius) Hutchinson of The was design and visible in continuing Ross, the result service 1974), an that older 112. thrust of normative types position can be taken seen that by
serve as
Notes to Chapter 3
Model Factory Pavilion designed in 1914 by Walter Gropius Adolf
299
in the Werkbund
The Interior Dimension: A Theoretical Approach Enclosed and Space,
Meyer. See chapter 9 of
Monice Malnar and Frank Vodvarka,
C Bloomer and Charles W Moore, Body Memory. Arcbitecture (New
Joy
by
for a fuller explication of this development.
Haven: Yale University Press, 1977), 32 The authors speculate that the tendency
18. Kent
architectural position based on
based visual phenomena (especially that of gcometric
and
accept an
simplicity) might simply reflect the
Powerful influence of Platonic thought in Europe.
to quickly
That tendency was reinforced,
moreover, by the strong presence of two-c dimensional
artists on the Bauhaus faculty
Julian Hochberg in the early years.
Visual Perception In. Architecture, Via: Architecture and Visual
19.
Perception 6 (1983): 37.
20. Gestalt has maintained
that direct sensation IS insufficient
Gestalt theory nervous of system perception, iS or really the moreover, actual, whether also and that relies often on inference complex, visual is to innate appearance organization explain and of either whole, through the or
workings of the
The
things.
spatial inference; the question
learned and constructed.
21. Hochberg. Visual Perception in Architecture, 43.
22. A major weakness this theory, acknowledged by J.J. Gibson, iS that there must
be ble for 23. certain the James little- J. imagerys -known Gibson, integration. neural The Perception processes” These of at processes the the last Visual are stage not, World of however, (Boston: perception defined that Houghton are responsi- Miffin,
1950), 3.
24. Ibid., 76. It is, of course, the visual world the very area Gibson has the most
dificuly with- that Gestalt theory claims to represent.
25, Ibid, 2u1. This last item – the virtual ignoring of local social norms- is precisely
what endears this theory to the developers of our own age. Perhaps of equal value is the
theory’s preoccupation with purely visual phenomena.
26. Hochberg, Visual Perception in Architecture,” 40
27. This is perhaps recognized by Gibson himself when he notes that the visual world
‘is flld with things that have meaning.” Meaning, at least as usually understood, is the
direct product of acculturated learning. This results in an understanding of perception as
interpreted sensation, whatever the mechanism.
28. Gibson, The Perception of the Visual World, 23.
29. Köhler, Gestalt Psychology, 82.
30. Ibid., 93. Such a distinction – that stimuli can be thus separated into a distinct
ategory- should make it clear why Köhler considers empiricism (in a limited sense) a
Child’s Conception Space, trans. FJ.
derivation ofS-R theory.
Langdon 32. 31.. Jean and J. 4. L. and Lunzer (1948; if London: The Routledge and held true, Kegan a Paul, baby of as its 1956), should, sIze
Barbel Inhelder,
Piaget
3.
at any age,
rccognize the of notes that independent Gestalt of principles perspective, as
apart from
well
Ibid., Piaget
in the field.
shape an object
33. Ibid., 13. Piaget notes that despite the differences in these twO constructions
ITS distance. This is not, however, supported by research
motor activity. Thus there is both continu-
of
space the common factor linking them is
lty of perceptual and representational space, as and well as Inhelder conceive chat process to be
separation.
connected with the Physical maturation of the subject. Moreover, they understand
attributes of particular points in that
34. It can be seen, however, that Piaget
closely
phenomena as clear and distinctive
the Gestalt
process.
by
rossajord
6a
300
Notes to Chapter 3
The Mechanisms of Perception, trans.G.N.Seagrim (196t;
35. Jean Piaget, he
New York
Basic Books, 1969), xxv.
pt
eafers to his theory as a third
36. lbid., xxvi. It should be noted here that Piaget refers to his
sibility (rather than a fourth), in an a priori dismissal of S-R theory.
ird pos-
37. After all, even Gestalt concedes this phenomenon.
and Perception Robert in. J. Architecture,” Stimson, 35. Spatial Bebavior: A Geographie
38. Hochberg, “Visual
39. Reginald G. Golledge
phte Per.
spective (New York: Guilford Press, 1997), 191.
40. Ibid,
41. Edward T. Hall, Beyond Culture (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Press/”
Doubleday,
1977), 42. Hall goes on to note that such controls usually so well hidden that they
goes
are
42.
are
experienced as innate.
42. Marshall H. Segall, Donald T. Campbell, and Melville J. Herskovits, The Influ-
ence of Culture on Visual Perception: An Advanced Study in Psychology and Anthropology
(Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1966), 73. ‘The authors go on to note that this view seems
to be shared by most contemporary perceptual theorists, even J. J. Gibson. It assumes that
the past experence of the organısm plays an important part in the construction of certain
assumptions about the world in which it lives- assumptions that remain, however, largely
unconscious.
43. Ibid. 49. Simply stated, the question here is whether our cultural experience pre-
disposes us to look for, and respond to, certain features of our environment more readily
than others.
44. perception Ibid., in 5O. which Bagwell Perceptual interpreted differences his findings result as from supporting differences a in past transactional culcural theory differ- of
ence. See also William H. Ittelson, Visual Space Perception (New York: Springer, 1960).
45. Segall, Campbel, and Herskovits do point out that the data are not as clear as
they might have wished in all instances, but that the evidence nonetheless points in che
direction they hypothesized it would. And, of course, they call for more study in tche area.
46. David Howes, “To Summon All the Senses,” in Varieties of Sensory Experience: A
Sourcebook in the Anthropology of the Senses, ed. David Howes (Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 1991), 3.
. r.
cuee Fenerience: A
47. David Howes, “Sensorial Anthropology,” in Varieties of Sensory Experienee:
Sourcebook in the Anthropology of the Senses, ed. David Howes (Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 1991), 173. One of the references cited by Howes is an article by Rosaleen
A. McCarthy and E. K. Warrington, “Evidence for Modality-Specific Meaning Systems
S the Brain” (1988). In their tests on a subject with progressive deterioration in his use of
language and comprehension ot the spoken word, the researchers found that his degra
dation deficit was confined to one modality and to one category within that modality,
thereby refuting the notion of an “all-purpose meaning store and providing positive
evl-
dence for multiple meaning representations
49. Anthony J Marsella and Walter Y. Quijano, A Comparıson of Vividness of Men-
48. Ibid.
tal Imagery across Different Sensory Modalities in Filipinos and Caucasian-Americans,
Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 5, no. 4 (December 1974): 451. The three hypotheses
tested with the two groups were first, that Filipinos would manifest greater vividnes of
imagery; second, the order of preferences and capabilities in vividness of imagery across
sensory modalities would differ; and third, the interrelationships in vividness of imagery
among the different sensory modalities would differ.
50. Ibid., 460. The third hypothesis failed to find any support