Using Eye-Tracking to Understand Human Responses to Traditional Neighborhood Designs

ABSTRACT

New research in brain and cognitive science is changing how we understand how people perceive and experience the built environment, offering key opportunities for urban planning, urban design, and architecture. Sixty-three college students looked at different scenes of New York City public buildings in a set up with  an eye tracker in front of a monitor displaying images. Half of the images had design characteristics exemplary of traditional neighborhood design (TND) (like narrow streets, complex facades, and bilateral symmetry). Subjects tended to show greater eye fixation on building fenestration in TND environments, as opposed to the non-TND environments.

KEYWORDS:

• Eye tracking
• traditional neighborhood design
• New York City
• public buildings

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge research assistance provided by the following: Ann Sussman, Grace Polanski, Divya Gandhi, Tatiana Marzan, Kristina Menski, Daniel Camilletti, Chris Gallegos and NoamSaragosti, and Eric Anderson. Funding for this research was provided by the New York City Department of Design and Construction under the Town+Gown Master Contract. Special thanks go to Terri Matthews, James Russell, MargaretO’Donoghue Castillo, Frederic Bell, Ifeoma Ebo, and Allison Brown, all of the NYC DDC.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The complexity of the brain and how it governs our behavior, without our conscious awareness or control, is detailed in numerous publications, including Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst, by Robert M Sapolsky (2017); a theme reiterated in earlier texts including Leonard Mlodinow’s (2013) Subliminal, How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior, and Marco Iacoboni’s (2008)Mirroring People, The Science of Empathy and How We Connect with Others.

2. While some images captured buildings straight ahead and others had a broader streetscape perspective, they all reflected the range of viewing angles that a person walking down a street might see (elements like benches and piers which were evident in the urban setting were not avoided or removed in the images).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the New York City Department of Design and Construction [N/A].