Soundscapes Matter – “Science News”
People with dementia are being given peace by creating personalised soundscapes for them. Talebzadeh’s work focused on “how a personalized soundscape can help those with dementia by providing clues regarding time of day and...
Value of Time in Nature – “Science News”
New research shows that the more time we spend in nature the more generous we are, it creates a sense of transcendence. Castelo lead a team that confirmed previous findings and determined via lab...
Scents Meet Virtual Reality for Wellbeing – “Science News”
Virtual Reality has taken a turn for the better by incorporating smell! There is a new report which uses views and smells to augment the virtual reality to create calm spaces in nature for...
Designing to Boost Brain Performance – “Science News”
This is a tough time to be a human. Humankind needs to creatively resolve a multitude of challenges in the weeks and months and years ahead. That makes this a good time to apply...
Home Office, Home Design Challenge
Creating a home office where people work to their full potential, and have a reasonable level of wellbeing while doing so, is a lot more challenging than heading off to IKEA and bringing home...
Learning Spaces – The Long Read
Our brains have to work hard to learn new things. The forces building the knowledge bases inside our skulls (we’ll talk mainly about learning information and mental skills here, not more physical skills) need...
Designing In Awe – Why and How
There may not be any broader mental state we could talk about in this issue, which focuses on designing to boost brain performance, than awe. The spaces and objects in our lives which are...
Living Your Best Life Minute – Shopping Tips
In this section, we’re going to initiate a new feature – how to use environmental psych in specific situations that you’re likely to encounter outside your home and office, as you live your life....
Helping Our Memory Work Better, Via Design
Design decisions can help our memories work just a little better. In this article, we’ll cover how design can support the memories of those of us with regular old brains, specific issues raised by...
Dealing With a Creative “Block”
For many people their creative pursuits, whether that’s drawing or painting or writing or playing an instrument or something else, are meaningful parts of their lives. For those individuals, when their creativity “stalls,” great...
It’s Time for Squishy
We love curves and squishy furniture is in right now and there’s a science-based reason it is! You might like to introduce some of these designs into your home right now as we emerge...
Red = Risk, unless you’re in China
Can seeing Red negatively influence Stock Market Liquidity? This is an interesting piece of research. We have written before about how the colour red influences our choices. In this month’s round up of Science News,...
Varying Lighting Levels
Vary your daylight – we’ve found more proof! You’ve heard of circadian rhythms and you are probably also aware how replicating it inside your home and office is a good idea. We write about...
Improving by Removing
Sometimes less is more. Have you ever tried to solve a problem by listing everything, maybe pulling in all the issues. In many situations, we seem to solve problems by adding. But in our...
Blue is Best
We like blue birds, which makes sense because humans definitely have a soft spot in their hearts for blue places and things. In this month’s science round up, there was more evidence that a...
Some Don’t Like it Hot
Temperature affects us all, and also how we perceive and like the space we are in. In our regular notes from science we picked up a recent study to share with you here. This...
Entertaining People from other Countries? Countries and Comfort
This is the article you need if you often entertain people from countries besides your own and you want them to feel comfortable. A questionnaire was sent to participants out in nine countries: Brazil,...
New Season, New Home!
Each Spring, a lot of us get the urge to try something new, house-wise—and this year, with so many of us having spent so much more time in our homes than usual that drive...
Checklist for Making Changes in Your Home
What to Change First? If you review your options and decide to remodel your current home, you need to decide what you should change first. In the articles in this month’s issue (May 2021...
Choosing a NEW HOME… the Long Read
If you’ve considered the stay-move list noted earlier and you’re going to find a new home, only relocate to a space that makes you feel good. Don’t choose to move into a space unless...
Where You Sleep…
This is SUCH an important list! Are the colours featured the not very saturated but relatively bright ones that humans find relaxing? Blues are good colors for bedrooms because we associate them with feeling...
Bathroom Renovation
Bathrooms can be tricky places to renovate because often people can’t decide what they are actually meant to be. Are they Zen zones where users will bliss out or activation zones where people shed...
Fixing the Home Office – Before or After You Move!
Satisfaction If you can’t do what you consider a good job at your job in your home office, you’ll be miserable. So what do you need to do? The same self-identity mentioned in the...
Spaces for Mingling
How to design for Mingling We have had a whole issue on this in April 2021 so be sure to check that out. But one of the most important aspects of our lives as...
Why We’ll Still Gather – From a Psych Perspective
Loads of people are proclaiming that future mingling will be much less prevalent than in the past. There are compelling reasons to believe, however, that after we’ve all been vaccinated we’ll continue to find...
Post-COVID Home Design
The single most important message, design-wise, we can draw from our experiences during the pandemic related lockdowns is that we need to make sure our homes, going forward, provide us with options as to...
Colour Me Moral – “Science News”
Chan and Meng found that “it seems that people have been conditioned to see objects in white color as potentially ‘morally good’ and those in black color as potentially ‘bad.’ In the current inquiry,...
Turn the Left Cheek – “Science News”
Ever wondered which way to face when you’re having your photo taken? Research completed by Park, Spence, Ishii, and Togawa can be useful next time you’re posing for a photo! This team explored “the...
When the Red Light doesn’t Necessary mean Stop – “Science News”
Pontes and Williams’ recent research is useful whenever people are trying to encourage or discourage people from gambling, taking risks. The investigators share that “In general, people make more risk averse choices, gambling less...
Light Your Restaurant with Warm Bulbs – “Science News”
If you’re a regular reader of The Space Doctors, then you’ll know that light makes a difference to how you feel and how you react to a situation. Here we share some research that...
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