Frontiers in Environmental Science (Apr 2022)
Quantifying Stimulus-Affected Cinematic Spaces Using Psychophysiological Assessments to Indicate Enhanced Cognition and Sustainable Design Criteria
Abstract
Objectives: Converging architecture with cinema and cognition has proved to be a practical approach to scrutinizing architectural elements’ significant contribution to engineering science. In this research, a behavioral analysis has been conducted to examine if disruptive events in cinematic spaces can lead to an insightful perception of architectural qualities and enhanced interplay with the observed spaces to highlight mental health and improved cognitive tasks in sustainable design characteristics.Methods: The experiment was conducted in participants (N = 90) while watching three films with different stimuli to facilitate multivariate analyses. The HR, BP, SCL, and BT were measured while screening films to subjects. Psychological assessments of PANAS, TIPI, Chills, Pleasure, Arousal, Dominance, and NAQ were gathered to conduct correlation and regression analyses between variables. An independent space syntax analysis of film plans was also performed to compare film spaces’ properties.Results: Analyses show that physiological responses of HR, BP, SCL, and BT showed a meaningful relationship with the event intensity. Psychological assessments of Chills, SAM, and NAQ also depicted a meaningful relationship with the degree of stimuli during the movie screenings. Regression analyses illustrated that the age factor had a significant relationship with Arousal (p-value = 0.04), Chills (p-value = 0.03), and Dominance (p-value = 0.00). The TIPI factor showed a meaningful relationship with Chills (p-value = 0.03) and Dominance (p-value = 0.00). PANAS PA factor’s relationship was significant on Chills (p-value = 0.00), Arousal (p-value = 0.04), and Dominance (p-value = 0.03), and the PANAS NA factor showed a meaningful relationship with Chills (p-value = 0.00) and Dominance (p-value = 0.05). The correlations in Chills–Arousal (p-value = 0.01), PANAS NA–TIPI (p-value = 0.01), NAQ–Pleasure (p-value = 0.05), and Arousal–Dominance (p-value = 0.00) were significant. Space syntax analyses also showed that film 3 had a mixed plan structure than the other two films. Factors such as area compactness, connectivity, visual entropy, controllability, and mean depth were influential in distinguishing film spaces.Conclusion: It has been concluded that the space with intensive disruption of architectural elements successfully indicated improved cognitive perception of spatial qualities, enhanced interaction, and signified sustainable design criteria. Evoking events disrupted the banalization of cinematic spaces, illustrating that the designed model can indicate a more homogenous evaluation of a sustainable environment.
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