It has never been possible to peer into the human mind, but new biometric and machine learning tools are changing this. We can now understand how people experience cities, and these insights can provide a roadmap for creating fairer, more sustainable and healthier places. increase.
Assuming people consent to monitor these technologies, researchers like us can use webcams to collect real-time facial analysis and eye movement data. This will allow us to identify the subconscious information conveyed by people’s faces as they participate in various urban settings. For example, were they smiling? what did they see first? How long were they preoccupied with what they saw?
Our research group at Tufts University has conducted numerous face analysis and eye-tracking studies, and upon scrutinizing these data, we found that people don’t like looking at cars. Traditional urban design and urban planning practice relied on subjective assessments of where people spend their time through surveys and interviews. This new kind of information and other research into how people perceive their environment could revolutionize the way urban developments are designed. Because we believe we can better consider people’s preferences before they start planning how they will use and move around a city.
This study builds on previous work that established the social and health benefits of car-free urban spaces, but employs a biometric lens. Empirical evidence that just looking at a car causes harm by measuring unconscious reactions to a variety of situations. These results support other studies that similarly demonstrate the value of using eye-tracking and facial expression analysis to guide urban design and planning.
The range of factors that govern our responses to space is as vast as the range of human emotions themselves, but our latest project sees people moving between car-free urban roads and cars. A statistically significant increase in positive emotions was found when viewing urban roads. Literally, I’d be happier if the car wasn’t in the picture. The study will help city planners quantify the benefits of car-free spaces as they consider how to make cities more comfortable and pedestrian-friendly.
This study on car-free roads used iMotions Online AFFDEX face coding software to track the real-time visual attention and facial expressions of 51 participants to images and videos of Memorial Drive in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This is a popular road and is closed. It affects weekend vehicle traffic at certain times of the year. We took similar images of the same road with and without cars and compared participants’ emotional responses to both types of images. A system that records human eye movements and facial expressions with a camera. The software then uses an algorithm to score whether participants exhibit positive, negative, or neutral emotions every millisecond of the study, based on subtle facial muscle movements. become
Participants expressed neutral emotions to the images 85% of the time, but on average 0.4% of the time participants expressed positive emotions to vehicle-free images and videos. spent a lot. A seemingly small difference, but measurable effects from static images may indicate that it is worth considering in a real-world setting where people are surrounded by cars.
To further investigate whether these differences are meaningful, we compared both emotional responses and visual fixation patterns to vehicle-free spaces using statistical methods that can control for possible confounding factors. . People in the study displayed more positive emotions when viewing images without a car in the foreground and when viewing images with a car in the foreground. Furthermore, our eye-tracking data showed that people’s eyes spent more time in image areas with vehicles than in areas without vehicles. People’s eyes are drawn to cars, but their emotional reactions while looking at them become more negative.
Scientists and urban planners around the world are beginning to play with biometric tools to understand these types of behavioral responses to urban and architectural elements. They found that decorative façades and active ground floors that encourage pedestrian activity tend to be most effective at drawing visual attention. Other studies show that front porches, vernacular architecture, which is architecture designed according to local customs, and pedestrian-scale designs catch our eye. Some studies have taken these biometric tools out of the lab, but more work is needed to test these human behavioral responses in real-world conditions.
In the city of Boston, which has long sought car-free roads, the mayor made more roads car-free early in the coronavirus pandemic to give people a place to go. These open street events have been very successful in getting people to spend time outside their homes. Research by other academics has demonstrated the health benefits of car-free urban design, but so far, no study has used biometrics to show how cars affect our emotions. There was no
Humans have evolved to survive in dangerous environments. Our nervous system responds to stimuli, especially hand movements, faces, and voices, and helps us determine whether we are in a safe or dangerous situation. In a social context, familiarity further reinforces safety and helps us interpret other people’s facial features as warm or friendly. All the elements a person encounters affect their perception of space that can be viewed as a threat. For example, recent research illustrates how difficult it is to foster a spatial “joyfulness” or “friendliness” in a car-centric environment.
Our findings and other studies show that natural elements such as trees and shrubs are less foreign to our brains than automotive-related infrastructure such as roads and curbs, and are more in line with our innate preferences. match. In addition, natural design elements reflect the natural surroundings of our environment, making it easier for humans to relax and enjoy their surroundings. Vehicle-free spaces are important in community development. This new study helps substantiate that and strengthen the claim for more people.
This is an opinion and analysis article and the views expressed by the author are not necessarily those of the author. Scientific American.
