Built Environment, stimulus, cognition
- 1. BUILT ENVIRONMENT & SPATIAL CULTURE Lecture 02,
- 2. Influence of Environment on Behavior •Environmental Determinism •Environmental Possibilism •Enviornmental Probabilism Environmental Determinism •Time Period: Late 19th century •Theory of evolution- survival of the fittest, process of natural selection •Environment (climate, soil, terrain, vegetation) controls human behavior •Birth of civilizations Environmental Possibilism / Cultural Determinism •Time Period: 1920s •Environment as the medium by which man is presented with opportunities. Man’s choice and effort in realizing these opportunities. So behavior is hardly determined by the environment. •Environment as the context of behavior which sets limits to the accomplishment of any attempted endeavor. •Technology, capital and efficient organizational skills widens these limits and expands range. BEHAVIOR is an individual’s response to the environment or to a self-generated stimulus(action or response), mediated by the following: •Physiological subsystem (related to body and its systems) physiological response to a scary movie includes your heart beating faster and your hands getting sweaty. •Cultural subsystem(interaction of different elements of culture) •Social subsystem(series of interrelationships existing between individuals, groups, and institutions and forming a whole. •Personality subsystem(the interaction between person and situation. Environmental Probabilism / Cultural Ecology •Time Period: Late 20th century •Man is fairly knowledgeable, usually rational and predominantly acquisitive. •Individual’s decision cannot be predicted but his range of possible decisions and the probability of making one can be ascertained.
- 3. Individual’s own Body as the Environment People, animals, plants and the built environment Environment of “Gestalts”( form and shape) Gestalt, a German word for form or shape, may refer to: Holism, the idea that natural systems and their properties should be viewed as wholes, not as collections of parts COVERT (hidden or private) OVERT (visible, open , public)
- 4. Stimulus receptors and impulse conductors: Receptors are groups of specialised cells. They can detect changes in the environment, which are called stimuli, and turn them into electrical impulses. Receptors are often located in the sense organs, such as the ear, eye and skin. Each organ has receptors sensitive to particular kinds of stimulus. Motor Effectors An effector is any part of the body that produces the response. Here are some examples of effectors: •a muscle contracting to move the arm •a muscle squeezing saliva from the salivary gland •a gland releasing a hormone into the blood
- 5. Behavioral Framework •Stimuli •Perception & Percept •Apperception •Cognition •Motor response Physical Perceptual Environment See, smell, hear, taste, touch Process of interpreting the percept in terms of previous experience. Once the percept is matched and understood, it becomes “cognition”. Cognition may not be derived from perception always, but may be self-generated or imagined. Action Something that causes a response in a body part or organism. A stimulus may be internal or external. Sense organs, such as the ear, and sensory receptors, such as those in the skin, are sensitive to external stimuli such as sound and touch the ability to see, hear, or become aware of something through the senses.
- 6. HIGH RISE VS LOW RISE This tempts one to conclude that high rises are unnatural, and some would argue that what is unnatural must be, in some way, harmful. High rises have been accused of causing many unpleasant outcomes. Among those examined in this paper are fear, dissatisfaction, stress, behavior problems, suicide, poor social relations, reduced helpfulness, and hindered child development. They may be trapped inside during a fire; it usually takes longer to reach the street from a high-rise dwelling than from dwellings of a few storeys. Residents in places with active tectonic plates worry about the entire building falling because of an earthquake. In the post-McVey, post-911 era, residents cannot help harbouring at least a slight fear that their building might be attacked. Tall thin buildings have smaller footprints than the equivalent number of low- rise housing units, and therefore may occupy less land area and leaves more room for parks and green space. Those who live in their upper reaches experience less noise from outside the building, and may breathe cleaner air. Controlled entrances reduce crime and the fear of crime as compared to the single-family resident, high-rise residents are free of yard and maintenance work, although part of the rent must go to pay others to do that work.
- 7. HIGH RISE VS LOW RISE This tempts one to conclude that high rises are unnatural, and some would argue that what is unnatural must be, in some way, harmful. High rises have been accused of causing many unpleasant outcomes. Among those examined in this paper are fear, dissatisfaction, stress, behavior problems, suicide, poor social relations, reduced helpfulness, and hindered child development. They may be trapped inside during a fire; it usually takes longer to reach the street from a high-rise dwelling than from dwellings of a few storeys. Residents in places with active tectonic plates worry about the entire building falling because of an earthquake. In the post-McVey, post-911 era, residents cannot help harbouring at least a slight fear that their building might be attacked. Tall thin buildings have smaller footprints than the equivalent number of low- rise housing units, and therefore may occupy less land area and leaves more room for parks and green space. Those who live in their upper reaches experience less noise from outside the building, and may breathe cleaner air. Controlled entrances reduce crime and the fear of crime as compared to the single-family resident, high-rise residents are free of yard and maintenance work, although part of the rent must go to pay others to do that work.