Architectural affordances: Linking action, perception, and cognition

In the article discussed in this chapter, the authors describe a framework of neuroaesthetics for architectural experiences that considers sensory feedback stemming from movement central for the experience of the built environment. As we move through space when experiencing architecture, our sensory impressions change, rendering the body and the brain as nondissociable agents of aesthetic experience. This interaction is described by the term affordance. The authors cast the human experience of the built environment to be predicated on the functional relation between action and perception and developed a neuroscientific experiment on architectural transitions to investigate how the human brain reflects architectural affordances. They found that varying sizes of transitions, reflecting different affordances, impact early perceptual processes, suggesting that our perception is indeed colored by the action potentials afforded by the composed space. In conclusion, the shape of space resonates with our embodied predictions regarding movement.