Open the windows!
Want to perform better? Joseph Allen, Director, Harvard’s Healthy Buildings program, details in a recent article in The Atlantic (free at the web address below) why ventilation, particularly in workplaces, is important: “My team...
Birdsong makes us happy
Ever wondered what soundtrack to play when you’re stressed? Turn on the birdsong. Ratcliffe confirms the value of nature soundtracks. Via a literature review she determined that “nature is broadly characterized by the sounds...
Keep warm and feel safe
The warmer we are the safer we feel. Hornstein, Fanselow, and Eisenberger link feeling something warm feeling safe: “a physically warm stimulus was less readily associated with threat (compared to soft or neutral stimuli;...
Windowless dorms? Really?
Did you see all the discussions in the news about Charlie Munger’s windowless dorm? We speak elsewhere on The Space Doctors site about the basic human need for natural light (circadian rhythms, stress, mental refreshment,...
Healthy shapes
We had a reader’s question on this too in November 2021. Trying to get someone to eat healthy? Wang, Zhang, and Jiang determined via multiple experiments that “angular shapes are associated with healthy food,...
Greenspace is better for childhood development
New research from Jarvis and colleagues has been published. They looked at how living near greenspace impacted childhood development. It turns out, that it does 🙂 How did they do it? They report that...
Do you have a thing for Filing Cabinets too?
I have a sentimental attachment to file cabinets. They store memories and rummaging around in them can actually lead to excellent research findings. When you type search terms into a search index of some...
Greens are in for 2022!
Greens are in and I love greens, wherever they are, for reasons I talk about all the time. Ones that are not very saturated but relatively light lead to just the right moods for...
Thinking Creatively
Trying to encourage creative thinking at your home of office. Consider the latest findings from Thoring and colleagues, people are more likely to think creatively in “Space that provides visible sources. . . ....
Pile on the Biophilic Experiences
Aristizabal and colleagues have found that more simultaneous biophilic experiences are better than fewer: when people in their study “were exposed to three biophilic design interventions (visual, auditory, and a combination (multisensory)) and a...
Biophilic Design enhancing performance, and more.
From the previous post, another study by essentially the same group: Aristizabal and colleagues also report that they collected data in spaces “allowed individuals to perform their typical workday task for 10 weeks. ....
Awe is good for you…
Want more creativity in your life? Then add a bit of awe! Zhang and team found that “on days when participants [in their study] felt more daily awe than they typically do, they reported...
Naming something? Add Nature!
If you want to give the impression that something is of value, then add some “nature” to it. Hahnel-Peeters and colleagues report that “In Study 1, we conducted a content analysis of the naming...
The unspoken signals – the Clothes and the Earrings you wear…
It seems we’ve been communicating nonverbally for a very long time. A University of Arizona press release reports that “The necklace, nametag, earrings or uniform you chose to put on this morning might say...
Yes! The Places You Should Work!
On Wednesday 13th October 2021, The Space Doctors, who provide Neuroscience based prescriptions for the design of your office and home performed their poem, “Yes! The Places You Should Work!” at Workplace Trends conference at the...
Airports are Going Biophilic!
A recent article in the New York Times (“The Trouble With Airports, and How to Fix Them,”) should brighten the day of anyone who has ever, or may ever need to spend time in airports....
Create a Work Zone to help when Working from Home
Puglisi and colleagues studied the experiences of people working remotely and develop related recommendations. They report that data from their surveys of remote workers “show that 55% of the workers perform their activity in...
Do masks make us distance less?
Lee and Chen found that face masks may influence how far we choose to be from other people. The researchers report that via data collected through an online survey they found that “A smaller...
Blind people and colour perception
Kim and colleagues determined that “congenitally blind and sighted individuals share in-depth understanding of object colour. Blind and sighted people share similar intuitions about which objects will have consistent colours, make similar predictions for...
How to help Someone get their Appetite back?
Trying to increase the likelihood that someone will eat something? Consider Zhou, Chen, and Li’s findings: “Despite being a fundamental food feature, the effect of food shapes has been underexplored. This study demonstrates that...
Don’t be fooled into not Recycling…
Van Doorn and Kurz found that “when presented with [recycling] options people may come to psychologically frame their waste creation as a contribution to the collective good that makes them feel good about themselves....
Pink and Green and how we perceive the taste
De Sousa and colleagues report that “participants expected the coffee associated with the pink label to taste sweeter than the green labelled coffee, whereas the coffee associated with the green label was expected to...
Live in a Green Area, if you can
Atiken found that “People who live in green neighbourhoods are less likely to develop cardiovascular disease. . . . The researchers analysed the odds of developing any new cardiovascular disease, and the number of...
Symmetrically balanced
Corradi and colleagues report that “people differ remarkably in the extent to which visual features influence their liking, highlighting the crucial role of individual variation when modelling aesthetic preferences. . . . overall, participants...
Sweet Roundness
Motoki and Velasco found that “People associate tastes and visual shapes non-randomly. For example, round shapes are associated with sweet taste, while angular shapes are associated with sour and bitter tastes. Previous studies have...
An excuse to build a study…?
Arkesteijn and teammates (using data collected from April to December 2020 from more than 36,000 Dutch people working at home during the COVID-19 pandemic) determined that “respondents who worked in a [dedicated] work room...
Add Vertical Nature
You may have seen Vertical Gardens, beautiful, stunning nature landscapes of greenery, plants, flowers, mini trees and more. There is increasing evidence that these have many positive effects on us, not just reducing VOCs....
Play music when doing something simple!
Have you ever wondered how music affects what you’re doing? Kiss and Linnell shared some research on two sets of people who either sat in silence or listened to some music while they are...
Depression and Vision
So when they speak about seeing the world through Rose-coloured glasses, it seems the opposite is true if you’re feeling blue. Researchers have verified that being depressed influences how people see the world, literally;...
Managing Circadian Rhythms
More research on how lighting affects us. Also read on to learn how we are lighting our homes and spaces now we have access to electric light in a way that is counter-intuitive to...
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