Terry Purcell

Why do preferences differ between scene types

Groups of subjects judged one example of two different types of outdoor scene on each of the items of the Perceived Restorative Scale, on two preference scales and a familiarity scale. It was argued that the previously demonstrated large variations in preference between different types of scenes were the result of participants using the restorative value of a scene as an implicit frame of reference for the preference judgment. Preference and the Perceived Restorative Scale score correlated .81, whereas familiarity and the Restorative Scale correlated .31, and preference and familiarity correlated .32. This result supports the hypothesis regarding the use of the restorative value of a scene as an implicit frame of reference for preference judgments. It is further argued that variations in the preference and restorative value of scenes may be associated with fractal geometry.

Mental synthesis and creativity in design: an experimental examination

Abstract This research examined design issues of creativity, mental synthesis, and drawing by conducting two experiments. These experiments compared and contrasted 3D designers, 2D designers, and Non-designers. The first experiment investigated if designers were more creative than non-designers when given creative mental synthesis tasks. We found they were. The second experiment investigated the relationship between drawing and creative mental synthesis. We found that how and when drawing is used is important. This has implications for design in that drawing and design representation appear to play a central role in the design thinking process.

Experiencing American and Australian High-and Popular-Style Houses

An experiment is reported that assessed aspects of a constructivist model of environmental experience, using examples of high- and popular-style, single, detached houses. Of interest was the relationship between measures of typicality and familiarity and affective experience, as well as how this relationship was affected by examples from different cultural/geographic locations. Also investigated were similarities and differences between architecture students at the beginning of their education, architecture students part way through their first year, and students from the general university population. Systematic relationships were found between the judgments of typicality and familiarity and affective judgments. Similarities and differences were related to the cultural/geographic origin of examples. No difference was found between architecture students at different stages of their university work, but both groups were dearly different from their nonarchitecture colleagues. These results are discussed in the context of the constructivist model of environmental experience.

The Angular Function of Orientation Illusions Induced by Projected Images of Tilted Real Object Scenes

Tilt aftereffects induced by line gratings are maximal when the test and inducing stimuli have an angular separation of 10°–15°. Similar effects induced by prismatically tilted real-object scenes have been found to increase monotonically with scene tilt. The difference between these two angular functions of aftereffect (that induced by gratings and that induced by real objects) has been attributed to the ‘meaning’ inherent in the real-object scenes. The preliminary experiments described here suggest that tilt aftereffects and illusions induced by projected slides of tilted real-object scenes have angular functions similar to that induced by a line grating. Hence, the monotonically increasing angular function obtained in the prism studies is not necessarily determined by the use of real-object scenes.

Effects of Exposure to a Tilted Room on Kinesthetic Postexposure Responses

It has been shown earlier that visual exposure to a room tilted 22° leads to long-lasting changes in visually guided postexposure judgments of the vertical in the direction of room tilt. Data from the present experiments indicate that visual exposure to the tilted room also alters kinesthetically-guided postexposure judgments of vertical in the same direction. This change occurs in responses made by both hands regardless of whether the hand tested was used to make the judgments during the exposure phase.