Animal Interiority: Sentience and Spatial Perception

The aim of the article is to identify and systematise the methods of using art objects in interior design, to analyse their transformation (from traditional to modern methods) with a focus on various aspects of the relationship between the spatial environment and fine art objects. Results. The research has shown that the transformation of the methods of using art objects (from traditional to modern innovative ones) provides endless opportunities for new methods and technologies of interior design with the use of art objects, which creates a harmonious object-spatial environment taking into account modern design trends. The analysis of art objects and the object-spatial environment revealed their interconnection in the following aspects: functional purpose, location conditions, types of fine art, spatial perception, reflection of the interior theme, integration with technology, and compliance with the principles and goals of sustainable development. The scientific novelty lies in the study, systematisation and analysis of the transformation of methods (from traditional to modern) of using art objects in interior design. Conclusions. The use of art objects in the interior is a complex multifunctional process that reflects a modern approach to the use of art works in the object-spatial environment to achieve a high artistic level in interior design. It has been found that art objects in the interior perform various functions, have certain visual forms of embodiment and create a harmonious aesthetic and meaningful space for living and working. In view of the development of the scientific and technological revolution, we see the prospects for further research in the analysis, systematisation and identification of modern methods transformation, including the identification of new aspects of the relationship between art objects and the subject-spatial environment based on the transformation of methods of using art works.

This study investigates the influence of body movements on spatial perception in both landscape and interior design environments, focusing on how physical interactions shape spatial understanding beyond visual perception alone. Grounded in the theory of embodied cognition, the research examines how gait, posture, and movement dynamics affect spatial awareness. The study captures detailed data on movement patterns and visual engagement across different spatial contexts using a combination of real-world observations and Virtual Reality (VR) simulations, motion-tracking systems, wearable sensors, and eye-tracking technology. A total of 157 participants, aged 20 to 65, navigated both outdoor landscapes and indoor environments, with key variables such as surface materials, spatial layout, and lighting conditions manipulated to assess their effects on spatial perception. The study measured gait speed, step frequency, path deviations, time to destination, visual attention, and subjective ratings of perceived openness, ease of movement, and emotional response. Key findings include that surface materials significantly influenced gait speed and step frequency. For example, participants walking on concrete had a significantly faster gait speed (mean difference = 0.5220, p = 0.001) than those walking on gravel. In terms of spatial layout, the two-way Analysis of variance (ANOVA) results showed that winding paths led to more path deviations (F-statistic = 350.00, p = 3.19 × 10−8) and longer times to destination (F-statistic = 1744.00, p = 2.39 ´ 10−11) compared to straight paths. The environment type (landscape vs. interior) also significantly affected navigation, with landscape participants showing a more significant deviation from direct paths (F-statistic = 19.60, p = 2.37 × 10−3). Visual engagement data, analyzed through a chi-square test, indicated that vertical elements like walls approached significance in attracting visual attention (Chi-square = 2.88, p = 0.0896), while other elements like trees and benches had less impact. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test results showed significant differences between real-world and VR experiences in perceived openness (W-statistic = 0.0, p = 0.001953), ease of movement (W-statistic = 0.0, p = 0.001953), and comfort (W-statistic = 0.0, p = 0.001953), highlighting VR’s limitations in replicating the full embodied experience of physical spaces.

One of the utilities of Virtual Reality is to provide its users with new perspectives, which is a promising application for architectural and interior design. In this paper, we investigate the effects of varying spatial scale perception (SSP), the perception of risks, and the ability to detect them in the virtual environment. We conducted a user study where participants experienced four unique perspectives, that of a two-year-old child, an eight-year-old child, an adult and a person in a wheelchair by manipulating their virtual inter-pupillary distance and eye height. We found that varying SSP had significant impacts on the perceived level of risk, heights of the identified risk, and the number of risks discovered. The results yielded empirical evidence to support that experiencing different SSP, can potentially help identify issues during an architectural design process for various groups of users.

This study aims to analyze the correlation between spatial perception ability and perspective drawing ability of university students in the interior design department. A correlation between spatial perception and perspective drawing of university students in interior design related departments has been recognized. For this empirical study, the theoretical background has been built up by documentary research as phase 1 and a survey was conducted by university (6universities) students majoring in interior design from Seoul, Ulsan, Gyeonggi-do Province, Chungcheongnam-do Province, Gyeongsangnam-do Province as phase 2. IBM SPSS 22.0 statistic package was used to analyze survey data for statistical processing. To analyze the demographic characteristics of the study subject, frequency analysis was conducted. To analyze mean and standard deviation(SD), the descriptive statistics was conducted. To figure out variable differences followed by subjects’ characteristics, two-sample t-test and one-way ANOVA have been conducted. Scheffe has been utilized for doing ad-hoc tests. To examine the correlation between perceptions and perspective drawing, Pearson’s correlation coefficients were checked. The result showed that there was a positive (+) correlation between students perceptions and perspective drawing skills, which means that a student with a strong spatial visualization ability and a spatial orientation ability has strong the perspective drawing ability as well. The spatial vectorization ability has a higher influence on the perspective drawing ability than that of spatial visualization ability. From this research, the perspective drawing ability and spatial perception ability of students should be enhanced through major courses, and professors should be able to make them fulfill their abilities.

The intersection of neuroscience and interior design offers innovative methodologies for quantifying human experiences in interiors. This systematic review explores the use of immersive virtual reality (IVR) technologies and biometrics in neuroscience‐informed interior design, aimed at evaluating current practices, identifying challenges, and suggesting future directions. This study has three objectives: (1) to examine the current applications of integrated VR/neuroscience methodologies in neuroscience‐informed interior design; (2) to investigate the utilization of IVR technologies, devices, and sensors measuring biometrics employed in neuroscience‐informed interior design to quantify human experience; and (3) to explore potential future directions in interior design that integrate insights from neuroscientific research findings and methodologies. Using the PRISMA methodology, we searched databases, including Taylor and Francis Online, ProQuest, PubMed, PsycINFO, Web of Science, Scopus, and ScienceDirect, in October 2023, retrieving 164 eligible studies, with 29 reviewed in detail. The risk of bias was assessed by paying attention to randomization, intervention deviations, outcome measurement, and the selection of reported results. The findings highlight the critical role of IVR and biometric analysis in enhancing research validity. However, variability in data reliability and differences between self‐assessed and neurophysiological outcomes, particularly in EEG studies, have been noted. Despite these limitations, the reviewed studies present reliable findings, underscoring the potential for interdisciplinary collaboration to address technical challenges. Practical implications include advancing evidence‐based interior design and developing tools to capture and interpret human experiences better. This study provides designers with a detailed analysis of IVR and neuroscience methodologies, highlighting tools, outcome measures, and their advantages and limitations. Future research should prioritize deeper insights into human–environment interactions through artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and biometric sensors integrated with IVR technologies. These advancements will equip designers with interdisciplinary methods and emerging technologies to create innovative interiors that enhance the quality of life.

In the context of the national initiative of the "Belt and Road" policy and the vigorous promotion of cultural soft power, interior design products infused with cultural creativity have emerged as significant carriers of cultural development and heritage. This paper explores the innovative application of virtual reality technology in the field of interior design, with a special focus on the integration of Dunhuang elements in design practices. By combining virtual reality technology with Dunhuang art, a novel paradigm for interior design is proposed, blending ancient murals, patterns, and colors with modern computer graphics technology, infusing spaces with a unique historical charm and cultural significance. From the perspectives of virtual reality technology, inheritance of Dunhuang artistic elements, Dunhuang-style spatial design based on virtual reality, user experience, and emotional resonance, this paper delves into an in-depth exploration. Its aim is to expand innovative paths within interior design, while simultaneously providing new ideas and methods for cultural heritage and spatial perception domains.

Extending the DSC paradigm: some areas for future research

The visual perception of interior architecture plays a crucial role in real estate marketing, influencing the decisions of buyers, interior architects, and real estate agents. These professionals rely on personal assessments of space, often drawing from their experience of using décor to influence how interiors are perceived. While intuition may validate some approaches, this study explores an under-examined aspect of interior design using a mobile eye-tracking device. It investigates how decorative elements affect spatial perception and offers insights into how individuals visually engage with interior environments. By integrating décor into the analysis of interior architecture, this study broadens the traditional scope of the field, demonstrating how décor composition can modulate spatial perception using eye-tracking technology. Results show that effective styling can redirect attention from key architectural elements, sometimes causing them to be overlooked during the critical first moments of observation commonly known as the “first impression”. These findings have important implications for interior design practice and architectural education.

People in cities spend more time indoors. For this reason, people who work and spend their time away from nature, with stress and a busy pace, squeezed into concrete buildings have adverse physical and psychological effects. Indoor ornamental plants have many positive effects because they are a part of nature in closed spaces. This statement is supported by national and international research (surveys conducted with users in many areas such as hospitals, schools, and offices). This study examined the effect of different balcony scenarios created with indoor ornamental plants on users' perception of space based on the Feng Shui philosophy. 13 experts from different professional groups, including landscape architects, interior designers, architects, and agricultural engineers, participated in the evaluation. Using a Likert-type scale, the experts scored 10 different scenarios designed with 3D modeling based on aesthetic, psychological, and tactile criteria. Basic statistical analyses (mean, standard deviation, minimum, maximum) and internal consistency coefficient (Cronbach's Alpha) were calculated on the obtained data. The findings revealed that spaces designed with tropical and succulent plants received high scores, particularly in terms of concepts such as "natural appearance," "spiritual tranquility," and "refreshing effect" (mean ≈ 4.40). Additionally, it was determined that the aesthetic perception and psychological impact of the space were stronger in designs using diversified plant groups. The Cronbach's Alpha value above 0.80 indicates that the expert evaluations are highly consistent. The study demonstrates that indoor spaces landscaped according to Feng Shui philosophy not only have a positive visual impact but also leave a positive psychological effect on users, thereby scientifically supporting the importance of plants as a key element in sustainable and healthy indoor space design.

This paper summarizes 13 indoor space design indicators that affect perception and behavior from three aspects: physical elements, other elements, and spatial attributes. Then, through the K-means algorithm and FP-growth correlation rule algorithm, we obtain the user’s behavioral habit data and carry out the simple correlation analysis and curve estimation regression analysis of the user’s perception and behavior based on the indexes in turn. On this basis, it is proposed that the indoor space stay time factor of green art users and spatial perception have 10 highly significant correlation indexes with 0.01 boundaries (two-tailed). Under the quadratic function model of the time factor R2=0.3425, the width in the spatial scale and the significance of the time factor have a P-value of 0.0065. The peak value of indoor natural light intake of the neighborhoods adopting the green design is 2,667.3% higher than that of traditional neighborhoods on cloudy days. The cost is 2667.3951 more, but the green interior design that is based on perception and behavioral association is highly effective.

This work falls within the area where psychology, anatomy and architecture meet and overlap. It comes from an interdisciplinary research carried out by professionals from very different, although complementary, backgrounds, as medicine and psychotherapy on one side, and interior design, landscape and urban design, on the other side. Through a brief powerpoint slide show, the results of a research carried out with the students of the Domus Academy of Design, the Landscape School Arte e Messaggio and the Department of Architecture and Planning of the Milan Polytechnic. The objective of the presentation is to show how a change in body organisation can affect the spatial perception, the spatial experience and the spatial representation. In the experiment reported, through a series of small, but specific, body movements the students have entered into different phisical patterns, with their relative “state of mind”, and then led to note how these changes have affected their perception of space. After the students to the research have been lead to experience specific body organisations and neurological patterns, they have been asked to draw a familiar type of space: a room for the interior designers of the Domus Academy, a garden for the landscape designers, a town square for the urban designers of the Politecnico di Milano.The results show recurring and meaningful patterns in the drawings for every type of body organisation. The demonstration, will offer to the participants the opportunity to understand clearly the correlation among neuro-physical patterns and their related spatial perception and representation. A short discussion at the end will adress practical implications of specific spatial choices in determining body and neurological patterns in fields as architecture, urban design, education, psychology and medicine.

Aynsley was principal investigator for the three-year AHRC-funded research project The Viennese Cafe and Fin-de-siecle Culture (2006–9), which was led by the RCA, in partnership with Simon Shaw-Miller and Tag Gronberg, co-investigators, at Birkbeck, University of London. The aim of the research project was to cast new light on the history of the Viennese coffeehouse through interdisciplinary scholarship, taking account of recent theoretical and methodological developments in cultural history, literary studies, visual and material culture studies, with particular reference to modernity in central Europe. The project led to an international conference and exhibition at the RCA, which Aynsley co-directed, and a number of publications. In this study, Aynsley bridged print history, often a narrow and technical field, to histories of interior design, to explore the interaction between print culture and the coffeehouse interior from 1870 to 1914. Research was conducted in Viennese libraries to establish how various forms of printed material were experienced within the city’s coffeehouses. The essay argues that these newly designed interior spaces framed a distinctive form of public life in which print culture became a central component. Research drew on collections of works on paper to establish how advertising and posters impinged on the cafe; the practice of reading in these spaces; signage both inside and on the exterior, and conventions of visually representing designs of the Viennese coffeehouse. Aynsley lectured on the wider historical interrelationship between graphic and interior design at the turn of the 20th century at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2008) and the Deutsches Museum, Munich (2008). He supervised the thesis of the AHRC-funded PhD student Diane Silverthorne, ‘New Spaces of Art, Design and Performance in Vienna 1890–1920: Alfred Roller and the Vienna Secessionists’ (RCA, 2010). The Vienna project was subsequently graded as ‘Outstanding’ by the AHRC peer-reviewer.

Purpose: Normative data for many objective voice measures are routinely used in clinical voice assessment; however, normative data reflect vocal output, but not vocalization process. The underlying physiologic processes of healthy phonation have been shown to be nonlinear and thus are likely different across individuals. Dynamic systems theory postulates that performance behaviors emerge from the nonlinear interplay of multiple physiologic components and that certain patterns are preferred and loosely governed by the interactions of physiology, task, and environment. The purpose of this study was to descriptively characterize the interactive nature of the vocalization subsystem triad in subjects with healthy voices and to determine if differing subgroups could be delineated to better understand how healthy voicing is physiologically generated.Method: Respiratory kinematic, aerodynamic, and acoustic formant data were obtained from 29 individuals with healthy voices (21 female and eight male). Multivariate analyses were used to descriptively characterize the interactions among the subsystems that contributed to healthy voicing.Results: Group data revealed representative measures of the 3 subsystems to be generally within the boundaries of established normative data. Despite this, 3 distinct clusters were delineated that represented 3 subgroups of individuals with differing subsystem patterning. Seven of the 9 measured variables in this study were found to be significantly different across at least 1 of the 3 subgroups indicating differing physiologic processes across individuals.Conclusion: Vocal output in healthy individuals appears to be generated by distinct and preferred physiologic processes that were represented by 3 subgroups indicating that the process of vocalization is different among individuals, but not entirely idiosyncratic. Possibilities for these differences are explored using the framework of dynamic systems theory and the dynamics of emergent behaviors. A revised physiologic model of phonation that accounts for differences within and among the vocalization subsystems is described.Supplemental Material S1. Individual subject data by cluster. Croake, D. J., Andreatta, R. D., & Stemple, J. C. (2019). Descriptive analysis of the interactive patterning of the vocalization subsystems in healthy participants: A dynamic systems perspective. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1044/2018_JSLHR-S-17-0466

Purpose Normative data for many objective voice measures are routinely used in clinical voice assessment; however, normative data reflect vocal output, but not vocalization process. The underlying physiologic processes of healthy phonation have been shown to be nonlinear and thus are likely different across individuals. Dynamic systems theory postulates that performance behaviors emerge from the nonlinear interplay of multiple physiologic components and that certain patterns are preferred and loosely governed by the interactions of physiology, task, and environment. The purpose of this study was to descriptively characterize the interactive nature of the vocalization subsystem triad in subjects with healthy voices and to determine if differing subgroups could be delineated to better understand how healthy voicing is physiologically generated. Method Respiratory kinematic, aerodynamic, and acoustic formant data were obtained from 29 individuals with healthy voices (21 female and eight male). Multivariate analyses were used to descriptively characterize the interactions among the subsystems that contributed to healthy voicing. Results Group data revealed representative measures of the 3 subsystems to be generally within the boundaries of established normative data. Despite this, 3 distinct clusters were delineated that represented 3 subgroups of individuals with differing subsystem patterning. Seven of the 9 measured variables in this study were found to be significantly different across at least 1 of the 3 subgroups indicating differing physiologic processes across individuals. Conclusion Vocal output in healthy individuals appears to be generated by distinct and preferred physiologic processes that were represented by 3 subgroups indicating that the process of vocalization is different among individuals, but not entirely idiosyncratic. Possibilities for these differences are explored using the framework of dynamic systems theory and the dynamics of emergent behaviors. A revised physiologic model of phonation that accounts for differences within and among the vocalization subsystems is described. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.7616462.

Sense-making is the process by which people give meaning to their collective experiences. Sense is viewed as knowledge, and the environment in which the sense is made is interconnected with communication effectiveness. Considering the critical role of sense-making in the learning process, scholars have emphasised the significance of providing interactive learning environments for students’ effective learning. By employing a modified version of Dervin’s sense-making theory, this qualitative case study explores the nature of students’ sense-making processes in a peer self-founded online learning group without teacher involvement. The study analysed online Chat logs generated by 30 English language learning students from a secondary school in China. The Chat logs were students’ discussions on a module of English writing: “Read and then write”. The researchers made meaning of the students experiences through their dialogue and interaction, which revealed the essence of a sense-making process: gap facing, gapdefining, gap bridging and gap bridged. The observations were followed with students’ interviews held to identify the factors contributing to an interactive learning environment for effective sense-making. The study found that the affordances of an interactive environment impact the communication outcomes through the interactional achievement in the sense-making process.