Lived space and geometric space: comparing people’s perceptions of spatial enclosure and exposure with metric room properties and isovist measures

Past research in spatial psychology has demonstrated that some environmental properties can positively influence human emotions. While architectural designers have adopted these findings to argue for the positive psychological impact of specific spatial dimensions, there is limited evidence that people can intuitively assess the most basic properties of an interior. Furthermore, the computational–mathematical methods used to examine interior spatio-visual properties have only rarely been compared to human perceptions. Indeed, there is no evidence that two of the most basic spatial feelings – enclosure and exposure – correlate to any of the metric or isovist-based properties of space. In response, this paper presents the results of a study involving 159 participants who assessed 24 perspective views of virtual interiors for feelings of enclosure and exposure. These results are compared with the metric properties and isovist measures of these interiors to examine if human perceptions of a simple space are accurate and possess any direct correlation with isovist measures.