Restorative Places in Urban Spaces: Searching for Synthetic Affordances to Foster Equitable Access to Affective-Cognitive Restoration
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Sloan, Mark A.
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Abstract
Environmental psychology literature supports the importance of nature for meeting the affective-cognitive restorative needs of people, that may then enable them to address higher-level personal needs such as those identified by Maslow (1943/1954). However, understanding is less clear about what synthetic (“man-made”) features of urban environments might also offer some degree of personal restoration if configured properly. Improving this understanding may be important to support inner-city neighborhoods, where residents may not be able to easily access nature, or address their higher-level needs equitably with their suburban counterparts. The present study seeks to address this gap in understanding by employing an immersive virtual reality (IVR) process, using a psychological survey and physiological measurements (electrocardiogram (EKG), galvanic skin response (GSR), and photoplethysmography (PPG)), to assess affective-cognitive restoration in 73 volunteer participants. Each participant was exposed to thirteen 60-second, 360-degree stereoscopic IVR videos that included spatial audio. Statistically controlling for nature and other environmental factors, the results for the physiological measurements were inconclusive, but three psychological dimensions (emotional, cognitive, behavioral) provided multiple key findings. One key finding revealed that a balance in complexity is required between visual-traffic urban complexity and copresence (a “people complexity”), as well as with other synthetic affordances, such as a space’s visual shape. This balance appears to address human limitations in cognitive attentional resources as discussed in key environmental psychological literature (e.g. Kaplan & Kaplan, 1989). This has implications for how urban planners, designers, and architects may design urban spaces to be more restorative. Another key finding showed that each of the psychological dimensions have slightly different restorative needs from their urban spaces. These needs include less complexity and fewer people for the emotional dimension, but additional people and more complexity (up to a point) to support the cognitive dimension. The findings also indicate that higher income and higher social capital have a relationship with more restorativeness, such that urban neighborhoods with lower income levels and lower social capital may not have equitable access to restorative urban places compared to higher-level areas. Overall, of the tested synthetic features, urban spaces that are in better-condition and better-maintained, with more visual convexity, and with a balance of complexities from visual, traffic, people presence and other synthetic features, depending on the pursued psychological dimension, appear to be the most conducive to support people’s daily restorative needs in a predominantly urban environment. Together, these findings provide city leaders, designers, and citizens with evidence to refocus resources toward a more-equitable and sustainable urban development—using the lens of affective-cognitive restoration.
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2025-12
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Text
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Dissertation (PhD)