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Abstract

How can science help us understand how we experience architecture? In this session, Prof. Anjan Chatterjee, Prof. Nikos Salingaros, Prof. Richard Taylor and Dr. Aenne Brielmann will discuss the latest insights into the cognitive and affective processes that determine how we perceive and evaluate our environment. We will share our insights into the neural-cognitive basis of these perceptions and evaluations: What brain regions are involved in processing and evaluating our environment and the architecture that shapes it? Are all or some of these mechanisms specific to aesthetic experiences?
We will also share our knowledge about visual properties that influence how we experience architecture and our visual environment in general: What makes an object, a building, a landscape, look approachable, beautiful? And what might be the reason for these effects? In doing so, we will also give our audience insight into state-of-the-art research methods that have led to these insights: How do researchers gain their insights? What kind of observations and experiments have contributed to our knowledge about our experience and evaluation of visual experiences? What are their strengths and weaknesses?