SpaceForce: Affective Force Fields in Urban Space
What makes urban areas attractive? This question is relevant both academically and politically in light of urban challenges such as population growth, rising rents and increasing social segregation between more and less attractive neighbourhoods.
In this project we are concerned - contrary to the usual disciplinary perspectives of architecture, urban planning or economics - with the deeper socio-psychological mechanisms that cause the emergence of affective meanings of urban places, which in turn underlie human decisions about where to live, means of transport, leisure activities, etc. We want to combine the expertise of the French project leader in the experimental study of affective place-related judgements with the expertise of the German project leader in the simulation-based study of affective dynamics of human communication.
Therefore, we want to combine the expertise of the French project leader on the experimental investigation of affective place-related judgements with the expertise of the German project leader on the simulation-based investigation of affective dynamics of human communication. The aim is to develop a mathematically formalised and experimentally validated theory of how affective processes drive human perceptions, decisions and behaviours in urban space.
Based on important theoretical traditions in social psychology and sociology (field theory, consistency theory, social constructivism, affect control theory), we postulate the communicative generation of affective force fields, which in turn determine human behaviour in the city. We will develop a computer model called ACT-space (for: spatially related affect control theory) that makes precise predictions about how people affectively perceive the urban environment and interact with each other there. We will also use innovative virtual reality (VR) technology, in which the second French project partner has extensive expertise, to aim for an ecological validation of the ACT-space model.
The project includes the following methodological steps:
1. creation of a lexicon of terms describing social interactions in cities and empirical assessments of their affective meanings by French and Germans;
2. using data from 1. to parameterise a computational model (ACT-space) to predict the probability of specific human-environment interactions;
3. creating simulations with ACT-space to explore intercultural differences between French and German urban culture;
4. a series of vignette experiments to test semantic predictions of ACT-space;
5. a series of visual experiments to test spatial predictions of ACT-space;
6. the creation of a visual library of urban identities (avatars) and settings to be used in a VR environment; and
7. a series of experiments using VR technology to test behavioural predictions of ACT-space.
