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Thesis Info
- LABS ID
- 00840
- Thesis Title
- Embodied space in architecture, cognitive neuroscience and virtual reality
- Author
- Isabella Pasqualini
- E-mail
- pasqualiniisa AT gmail.com
- 2nd Author
- 3rd Author
- Degree
- Ph.D.
- Year
- December 2012
- Number of Pages
- 164
- University
- EPFL (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne)
- Thesis Supervisor
- Prof. Olaf Blanke
- Supervisor e-mail
- olaf.blanke AT epfl.ch
- Other Supervisor(s)
- Prof. Dieter Dietz
- Language(s) of Thesis
- English
- Department / Discipline
- Architecture / Life Sciences
- Copyright Ownership
- Isabella Pasqualini
- Languages Familiar to Author
- English, German, Italian, French, Spanish, Dutch
- URL where full thesis can be found
- www.dropbox.com/s/do47oufx5ubhygw/EPFL_TH5555.pdf?dl=0
- Keywords
- embodiment ; architecture ; multisensory integration ; bodily self-consciousness ; self-identification ; self-location ; perspective ; immersive virtual reality
- Abstract: 200-500 words
- Recent findings in cognitive neuroscience enable a renewed understanding of embodied space in architecture. From a historical perspective, the human body and perception have always been the architectonic reference for spatial proportions. The architectonic interior thereby molds the subjective experience of the environment in contingency with a skillful articulation of its proportions in three dimensions. Modern science recalls several notions of embodied space. Embodiment and body ownership have been linked empirically to multisensory processing, enabling us to study the common aspects of the self and the conception of architectonic space. Investigations about the multisensory integration of architectonic cues may, therefore, provide scientific insight into how architecture influences self-consciousness through spatial feelings. These metaphorical and functional associations of the body with the experience of architectonic space and its digital representation, include the investigation of perspective and spatial depth perception in immersive virtual reality. Attempts to sketch an interaction between architecture and cognitive neuroscience may bring about a design discipline based on multisensory processing with permeable borders to contemporary science and immersive technologies. This Ph.D. thesis introduces digital space and cognitive neuroscience to the investigation of embodiment in architecture using techniques from immersive virtual reality and cognitive neuropsychology. In three empirical investigations using immersive virtual reality in a laboratory setting, we have studied the phenomenology of own-body perception introducing parameters from architecture and bodily space. Within different setups, we tested whether bodily self-consciousness may be associated with architecture through a visuo-tactile conflict, and, whether the changes in bodily self-consciousness then modulate how architectonic space is embodied. Our results relate bodily self-consciousness with architecture-specific perceptions, as well as feelings. Also, we observed perceptual changes related to visual perspective. We discuss our findings through a historical confrontation with notions of embodiment in architecture.
See scientific publication:
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00375/full