Odd Spaces can make Great Spaces!
If when you read “odd places” in the title of this article and thought, “at last, what I should do with that weird space under the stairs OR that 2 foot by 3 foot...
Places for Dogs, Cats, and Fish
Our pets, at the very least, seem like our very good friends, and we can make sure that they enjoy living in our homes as much as we enjoy having them share it with...
Want to make a good first impression?
We all like to be liked and want to make a good impression. Tooley “found that a space that is aesthetically satisfying and valued, contributes to the likeability of its occupants. . . ....
One Mousse, Two Mousse, Yes Mousse, NO Mousse!
The Space Doctors have written another poem for you in the style of Dr Seuss! We hope you enjoy it! If you would like your very own higher resolution PDF copy to send to your...
Banking Happiness
Faraji-Rad and Lee determined that “Merely anticipating a future sad event motivates consumers to ‘accumulate happiness’ in order to enhance their ability to cope with the anticipated sadness later—a phenomenon that we call banking...
The Space in the Place!
As a gift for Christmas, The Space Doctors have written another poem for you in the style of Dr Seuss! We hope you enjoy it! If you would like your very own higher resolution PDF...
In conversation with The Space Doctors
Dr. Augustin and Dr. Champion had a range of experiences before they joined forces as The Space Doctors—they weren’t born yesterday even if their faces do have a certain youthful glow in every photograph...
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...
Getting your Home ready for the Fall
Autumn can be the most depressing season. Sure, the leaves all turn pretty colours and the nip in the air means it’s OK to have a nip or two of hot spiced punch (with...
Let there be Light
As we move toward the solstice and beyond, if you live in the Northern Hemisphere, you’ll have fewer hours of day light every day and that means less natural light in your home. This...
Fall and Food
One of the first questions that generally gets asked about design and eating is if colours on walls, plates, etc., can influence how much we eat. The answer: surface colours do indeed influence our...
Temperature Wars
This is the time of year when there are often quite lively, shall we say, debates over where to set the thermostat in your home or office. Please consider this article a public service,...
Beware of Grumpy Design!
Your mood has an effect on your impressions of the world around you, and your drive to re-design them. When we’re in a good mood, because we just got a raise or were given...
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...
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...
Learning Spaces – 1
Cognitive learning is hard, hard brain work, whether you’re 8 or 80. Spaces where you plan to learn new material, whether they’re a home schoolroom, a home office, or a classroom outside a home...
Learning Spaces – 3
There are a range of educational philosophies and styles that teachers may favour and some more rigorously encourage movement during lessons than others. Movement requires a space to move in, and that can influence...
Memory!
Want to remember what you’ve learned? The research is very, very clear. When we return to the same place where we originally learned something, or even had a particular idea/inspiration, we’re more likely to...
Mentally Exhausted? Time for a Field Trip!
You know the feeling. After you’ve been concentrating on something challenging for a while, you become mentally exhausted (and grumpy, but you don’t want to talk about that, probably). In other articles, for instance...
Planning a Party? – The Long Read
The PARTY CHECKLIST! It’s probably been a while since you’ve been able to plan any sort of gathering that includes more than you and your cat. Neuroscientists (who would no doubt by this time...
Dorm Rooms / Shared Kids Bedrooms
In a shared bedroom the main difference would be to make sure that each child has some space to put out/display a couple of things that remind them about what they value about themselves...
In the Car
You have some ability to customize the interior of your car to help you deal with situations you encounter as you drive. If you want to relax, the traffic has gotten your blood pressure...
Be Careful with the De-Cluttering!
At this point, many of us have been locked in our homes for so long that we’ve had a chance to clutter and are now thinking that the best option for our weekend amusement...
Space-By-Time
We’ve all had the experience of being in a café in the morning and being able to plough right through a backlog of work and returning at night to the same spot and having...
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