Environment Cognition And Action

How do human beings comprehend, evaluate, and utilize the physical environments they inhabit? In this edited volume, a distinguished group of international contributors examines in detail the interconnections between what we know about, feel, and hope to accomplish in real world environments. Psychologists, planners, architects, and geographers discuss the state of knowledge in environmental cognition, building and landscape assessment, aesthetics, and decision-making. Gaps in our thinking about environmental issues are also discussed. The authors present an analysis of how our knowledge can be utilized in the design and planning of settings better suited to human needs. Of interest to psychologists, geographers, and environmental designers, Environment, Cognition, and Action examines the dynamic interplay of assessment, knowledge, and action of people in all settings relevant to daily life -- home, school, office and industry.

How do human beings comprehend, evaluate and utilize the physical environments they inhabit? In this volume, psychologists, planners and architects discuss the present state of knowledge in environmental cognition, building and landscape assessment, aesthetics and decision-making.

Even as simple a task as quenching thirst with a glass of water involves a sequence of perceptions and actions woven together by expectations and experience. What are the myriad links between perception and action, and what does cognition have to do with them? Intuitively we think that perception precedes action, but we also know that action moulds perception. The reciprocal links between perception and action are now accepted almost universally. The discovery of mirror neurons that encode observed actions has further emphasized the coupling of perception and action. The real aim of this research topic is to go beyond identifying the evidence for perception-action coupling, and study the cognitive entities and processes that influence the perception-action link. For example, the internal representations of perceived and produced events are created and modified through experience. Yet the perception action link is considered relatively automatic. To what extent is the perception-action link affected by representations and their manipulations by cognitive processes? Does selective attention modify the perception action coupling? How, and to what extent, does the context provide sources of cognitive control? The developmental trajectory of the perception-action link and the influence of cognition at various stages of development could be another line of important evidence. The responses to these and other such questions contribute to our understanding of this research area with significant implications for perception-action coupling.

Covering the full spectrum of methodology, the timely and indispensible Research Methods for Environmental surveys the research and application methods for studying, changing, and improving human attitudes, behaviour and well-being in relation to the physical environment. The first new book covering research methods in environmental psychology in over 25 years. Brings the subject completely up-to-date with coverage of the latest methodology in the field The level of public concern over the impact of the environment on humans is high, making this book timely and of real interest to a fast growing discipline Comprehensively surveys the research and application methods for studying, changing, and improving human attitudes, behavior, and well-being in relation to the physical environment Robert Gifford is internationally recognised as one of the leading individuals in this field, and the contributors include many of the major leaders in the discipline

This book aims to enrich our understanding of the role the environment plays in processes of life and cognition, from the perspective of enactive cognitive science. Miguel A. Sepúlveda-Pedro offers an unprecedented interpretation of the central claims of the enactive approach to cognition, supported by contemporary works of ecological psychology and phenomenology. The enactive approach conceives cognition as sense-making, a phenomenon emerging from the organizational nature of the living body that evolves in human beings through sensorimotor, intercorporeal, and linguistic interactions with the environment. From this standpoint, Sepúlveda-Pedro suggests incorporating three new theses into the theoretical body of the enactive approach: sense-making and cognition fundamentally consist of processes of norm development; the environment, cognitive agents actually interact with, is an active ecological field enacted in their historical past; and sense-making occurs in a domain consisting of multiple normative dimensions that the author names enactive place.

This special issue examines the basic processes of space perception and how these processes interact with action planning and motor control.