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| Our House |
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| The House next door |
One day, right after my partner and I had recently moved in, I was driving home and looked up to notice I was not at my house like I should be but instead was on "Sorrel" road, which looked almost identical to my block and was oddly similar in name to Squirrel. I had taken the exact same turns from Mojave (right onto East Trail, left onto Reno Loop, right onto Squirrel, and left onto Brown) so I was very confused and turned around. I tried to retrace my steps to get back to East Trail Drive, which, at that point, was the only way I knew to get to my house from Mojave. It took me a long time to realize I had taken a similar, but very different street, called West Trail Drive (which I didn't know existed at that point). It was a very disconcerting moment and one that aptly demonstrates the environmental preference matrix.
While driving, I was experiencing an environment that was low in preference but high in familiarity because everything more or less looked the same. As such, it was an environment that was highly coherent and highly legible - the structure of the environment was identifiable like sidewalks, walls, and plants all being more or less in the same place. The houses all fit together and fit with my understanding of what was to come (a turn onto a side street, Squirrel, that led to a turn onto my block, Brown Ln, with my house being the sixth on the left), and my cognitive map was established enough to lead me to go through the motions without really paying attention. However, when I began to slow down to get ready to turn into my driveway, I realized that the house looked slightly different. It was not a huge difference, but it was noticeable enough that I went from being in a highly coherent and legible environment to one that was highly coherent but with low legibility.
What I find interesting about this experience in the context of preference is that the environmental setting of being on the other side of the neighborhood initially made me feel uncomfortable and worried, however, I quickly felt capable of figuring out how to get home given my understanding of the subdivision being constructed in a loop, thus moving me from a highly coherent and highly legible state to highly coherent and low legibility, to a moderately complex and highly mysterious one. Even as a subdivision that truly is "little boxes on the hillside" like Malvina Reynolds sings, getting lost did not stop me from experiencing my subdivision as a preferred environment because it involved new processes. As Kaplan explains "environments that are likely to be preferred are those that permit involvement and making sense" (1982, p. 148). Although a simple example, I believe it demonstrates human preference because while reorienting myself, I was able to organize the setting as the other half of the neighborhood (coherence), realize that the streets, though similar, were in fact different and thus, new representations (complexity), extend my cognitive map of the larger region (mystery), and feel reassured that given the circular loop in the subdivision, the "environment yet to come would be manageable" (Kaplan, 1982, p. 149) because it would eventually get me to Squirrel Lane.
Kaplan S. and Kaplan J. (1982). Humanscape: Environments For People. Michigan: Ulrich's Books Inc.
Kaplan, Stephen. "Aesthetics, Affect and Cognition: Environmental Preference From an Evolutionary Perspective."
Environment and Behavior, Vol. 19, No. 1, January1987, pp. 3-32.
I really liked this post because it reminded me of home. Ray mentioned Levittown, Long Island in class - and I live(d) in Levittown, PA. Instead of exactly the same thing, our town was split up into "sections." These sections had different, seemingly random names (which isn't good for preferences) "North Park," "Birch Valley," "Thornridge," etc. The streets within each section would correspond with the section name (in North Park, there would be streets like Nectar, Nutmeg, Neptune, etc). That would really help navigation, however. For example, if you said, "I live on Nectar Lane," then the other person would know right away you lived in North Park and would have a better idea of where they need to go.
ReplyDeleteI believe that this is a useful implementation of utilizing the idea of 'regions' to help enhance the preferential properties of a regular, cookie-cutter suburban neighborhood.
What a clear and good example of a familiar environment that lacks preference. Despite the use of regionally themed street names to enhance wayfinding, subdivisions are notorious for being difficult to navigate. People may have personal experiences of living in subdivisions which provide multiple internal representations toward a cognitive map that doesn’t ultimately lend clarity.
ReplyDeleteSubdivisions are an example of what Watt, in Man’s Efficient Rush Toward Deadly Dullness, describes as civilization’s emphasis on efficiency and productivity. Watt argues for the intrinsic value of diversity and it sounds like you might too! In the example of cookie-cutter subdivisions, decreased diversity is not only visual in the similarity of structural features but also in plant species. You mentioned that there are fruit trees, succulents, and bushes but I wonder what the richness and evenness of them are? If the subdivision environment had more rich plant species (richness in number of different items in a set) and even plant species (evenness in number of different items in the set) would the increased diversity lead to increased coherence (p. 163)? Watt also has another point for diversity that is interesting applied to this example where he argues that diversity is connected to mental well-being. You mentioned that getting lost made you feel uncomfortable and worried. It’s disconcerting to not be able to find coherence or a preferred environment near home which clearly could affect one’s mental health. Thanks Natalie!
Humanscape: Watt, Man’s Efficient Rush Toward Deadly Dullness, (pp. 160-170)