Architectural Visualization

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1 Architectural Visualization An Analysis from Human Visual Cognition Process Liang Chen Program in Digital Arts & Design Faculty of Art & Design Monash University Australia Author Liang Chen Program in Digital Arts & Design Supervisor Dr. Raymond Li School of Multimedia Systems Faculty of Information Technology Copyright Faculty of Art & Design, Monash University, All rights reserved.

2 Architectural Visualization An Analysis from Human Visual Cognition Process Liang Chen Program in Digital Arts & Design, Faculty of Art & Design, Monash University Abstract Three-dimensional visualization has been employed extensively by architects as a medium for explaining architectural concepts since the availability of computer-aided design. It has been proved to be a far more effective communication technique compared with the conventional methods such as technical drawings and lexical documentation. However, the reason why three-dimensional visualization is better than the other techniques has not been explicitly examined. This article describes the problems in the current architectural communication process. It starts with the discussion of the problem of the current communication methods used in architectural design followed by the discussion of the popular communication theory. After that, the human visual cognition process is studied to find the solution to the current architectural communication issues. At the end, we propose three-dimensional architectural visualization as a solution to improve the current architectural communication method. 1

3 Table Of Contents 1 Introduction Problems Lexical Communication Communicate with Architectural Drawings 6 2 The Visual Communication Process Mental Imagery and Spatial Reasoning Information Decomposition 9 3 Conclusion 13 4 Reference 15 2

4 List of Figures Figure 1 Architectural Plan 5 Figure 2 - Berlo's Communication Model 6 Figure 3 - Relation between the low-level and high-level visions 7 Figure 4 - The process of the subject's visual cognition 8 Figure 5 - The relation between the generation of mental imagery and spatial reasoning 9 Figure 6 Fallingwater Main Floor Plan 11 Figure 7 Fallingwater Second Floor Plan 11 Figure 8 Fallingwater South Elevation 12 Figure 9 Fallingwater Perspective 12 Figure 10 - Mind Segment (Conventional Communication) 13 Figure 11 - Mind Segment (3D Visualization) 14 3

5 1 Introduction A disproportionate number of defects in the architectural design can be traced to the inefficiency of communication between the architect and the client. The poor communication of architectural domain knowledge to the client has been implicated as a main barrier to increasing the quality of the design itself and the satisfaction of the client at the same time. Effective communication between the architect and the client is therefore crucial if the state of affair is to be improved. Various means of communication has evolved over the long period of the development of architecture and the communication theories. Verbal communication, written documentation, architectural technical drawings and architectural rendering have been employed in architectural design as a tool for the architect to communicate effectively with the client. However, architects are still the subject for blame when the communication fails to meet its objectives. Is this really the architect's fault? Or is it actually the misunderstanding of the client? Or both? 1.1 Problems If we take a closer look at the communication process between the architect and the client, we realize that it is the combination of a series of bi-directional actions. In this communication process, there exists, among other ingredients, at least one information source and one information receiver. The failure of a bi-directional communication process is the responsibility of both the information source and the information receiver (Berlo, 1960). Achieving high-quality requirements in an architectural design project necessities high-integrity communication, but the innate mechanisms of human communication are not well tuned to this goal, especially when the knowledge domains of the communicators are different. In the following part of the paper, we will talk about the communication models used in the architectural design communication process; why the current model fails to provide a satisfactory solution to the problem? And how can we improve the model? 1.2 Lexical Communication Natural language, being one of the most ancient forms of interpersonal communication method, has been employed instinctively by architects as the medium to transmit their message. However, this approach usually generates a large amount of natural language content which is hard to manage and process by the human brain due to the fact that architecture is a highly visual-oriented field. Take the following plan of a residential building as an example. Trying to describe the division and relationship of spaces with lexical language is an daunting task not only because of the large amount of information but also the ambiguity of meaning in the form of lexical expression. 4

6 Figure 1 Architectural Plan As we can see, the biggest challenge the architect meets is, how to eliminate the ambiguity in the communication process. In other words, how to keep the accuracy of the communicated information. By accuracy, we mean that the architect gets the expect response from the information receiver in the communication process. As Holgate (1992) mentioned that when expressing the aesthetic of architecture in verbal form architects encounter the problem of ensuring the fidelity of message to all participants. What Holgate implies here is that the understanding, experiencing of architectural form is tightly connected with the message receivers' own conditions such as education background, social condition, and natural surrounding. When the architect describes a room in the above plan as large, spacious and comfortable, how large does he mean? To a person who has been living in a five square meters room, ten square meters is large. However, a person who spends most of his time in a fifty square meters palace might feel that the room is too small. Even worst, the influence of the experience of the information receiver on the interpretation of the message is just one factor that Berlo (1960) mentioned in his communication model. 5

7 Berlo structured his communication model with, basically, four parts. The source of the communication is some person or group of persons with a purpose or a reason for engaging in communication. The message is the purpose of the source embedded in the form of some kind of physical behavior. The channel is the medium through which the message being sent. The receiver of the communication is the person or group of persons at the other end of the channel (Berlo, 1960). As mentioned above, Berlo also suggested that the accuracy of the communication process is heavily affected by several factors of both the communication source and the receiver. The factors Berlo mentioned in his model are the communication skills, the attitude, the knowledge level, the social system, and the culture background of the communication source and the receiver. Although most of his research is based on lexical methods of communication, Berlo's theory set up a solid foundation for the descendant research on human communication. Source Comm. skills Attitudes Knowledge Social System Message Channel(s) Receiver Comm. skills Attitudes Knowledge Social System Culture Culture Figure 2 - Berlo's Communication Model 1.3 Communicate with Architectural Drawings The obvious flaws of lexical communication stimulated the architect to find a more efficient way to express their ideas. Visual languages such as architectural drawings became popular in that they are the media the architect works with and they can be understand, to a certain extent, by the general population. Although it has made tremendous progress, this new method of communication also raises new questions for us. The major issue when trying to communicate with architectural drawing roots in the difference of knowledge domain between the architect and the information receiver. The first problem the information receiver experiences when communicate with the architect by architectural drawings is the difficulty to visualize the three-dimensional space by combining various information from the plans and the facades. As Brebner (1982) mentioned, human beings interpret the world by storing interconnected images and symbols. It is the relationships which is abstracted from our former experience that enables us to anticipate the next events. Moreover, Berlo (1960) also suggested that thought involves manipulation of symbols. People with no experience with a particular thing will encounter problem understanding it. What these research show us here is that while communicating with architectural drawing among other 6

8 professionals is effective and efficient, a general audience will most likely have hard time visualizing the three-dimensional space without special training. 2 The Visual Communication Process 2.1 Mental Imagery and Spatial Reasoning With the problems arose, let's explore the architectural communication in a more thorough way. As Berlo explained in his communication theory, the information is encoded by the information source before it is sent to the information receiver. The encoding process in architectural design is the projection of three-dimensional space onto two-dimensional media such as, technical drawings or perspective drawings. Once the information is encoded and transmitted to the information receiver, it's, then, the information receiver's responsibility to interpret its meaning. How does the architect encode the information and how does the information receiver decode the information and interpret it, thus, have crucial influence on the both the speed and fidelity of communication. Visual Environment Low-level Vision High-level Vision Spatial Reasoning Long-term Memory Figure 3 - Relation between the low-level and high-level visions To understand how does the encoded information being interpreted by its receiver, it is necessary to explain first how does the human brain processes visual information. The human visual cognitive process can be classified into two categories, low-level vision and high-level vision (Osherson et. al., 1990). As Kosslyn (1999) remarked, low-level visual process is driven purely by the stimulus input. The responsibility of the low-level vision is to recover the physical properties of the visual environment, such as detecting edges and colors of objects. Yuille and Ullman (1990) further declared that low-level vision acts independent of the domain and task. This suggests to us that the processing power required is not related to the type of visual information presented. 7

9 In contrast, high-level vision takes the information processed by the low-level vision and connects it with the knowledge stored in the long-term memory. High-level visual process is comprised of several sub-processes such as object recognition and mental imagery generation and manipulation (Kosslyn, 1999, Biederman, 1990). As Biederman (1990) mentioned, object recognition is the activation in the memory of a representation of a stimulus class from an image projected by the object to the retina. Mental imagery, on the other hand, is defined as the mental invention or recreation of an experience that in at least some respect resembles the experience of actually perceiving an object or an event, either in conjunction with, or in the absence of, direct sensory stimulation (Finke, 1989). Similar to the low-level visual process, the object recognition process does not affect by the complexity of the objects (Biederman, 1990). On the contrary, the time required to generate the mental imagery increase with the complexity of the image (Kosslyn, 1990). Thus, mental imagery is considered as the crucial factor that affects the spatial reasoning process of human mind. When looking at the information receiver we notice that there are a series of activities happened once the encoded information is received. Assuming that the architect tries to communicate by technical drawings with the client; and the client is expected to evaluate the architectural design based on these technical drawings. The cognitive process of the client after presented with the technical drawings starts with the lowlevel vision which analyze the illustrations to collect the basic visual information such as lines, and surfaces. Then, the information is processed by the higher-level vision to identify the graphical elements with the help of the long-term memory. After this, as Finke (1989) pointed out, research shows that when trying to understand a threedimensional object represented by series of orthographic views, the subjects will mentally construct the three-dimensional structures of the object; the client has to generate the mental imagery of the three-dimensional form of the design from the provided two-dimensional illustrations. This mental imagery will probably then be compared with another mental imagery that the client encoded from the remember experience (Osherson et. al., 1990) to assess the success of the architecture. High-level Vision 2D Illustrations Low-level Vision Object Recognition Mental Imagery Spatial Reasoning Long-term Memory Figure 4 - The process of the subject's visual cognition 8

10 Here in this visual cognitive process the first thing concerns us is the step where mental imagery is generated. The time needed to generate the three-dimensional objects increases in proportion to the number of parts the objects are initially conceived (Finke, 1989; Kosslyn, 1990). Moreover, the fact that assessing the architectural design is a spatial reasoning process proposes another question which is will the constant generation of mental imageries affect our spatial reasoning capability. As Stillings (1995) suggested, without the external input to the visual buffer image perception is made difficult. The requirement of constantly refreshing the imagery while shifting our attention on the object or from one object to another object can lead to subtle interplay between imagery and reasoning. Moreover, as Shah and Miyake (1996) proposed, spatial working memory is conceptualized as including both specialized storage mechanisms for spatial information and specialized processes for transforming spatial information. According to this account, spatial working memory has limited resources, and both storage and processing demands compete for those resources. Based on Stillings and Shah and Miyake's research we can visualize the relationship of the generation of mental imagery and spatial reasoning can be depicted as follow. Spatial Reasoning Mental Imagery Generation Figure 5 - The relation between the generation of mental imagery and spatial reasoning From this diagram, we can clearly see that the more processing power the audience has to spend on generating the mental imagery of the architecture the less capacity does the mind have for spatial reasoning. As a result, to maximize the processing power for spatial reasoning, the architect should try to communicate in a way that requires the least generation of mental imagery from the audience. 2.2 Information Decomposition Another factor that attracts our attention is the information load of the communication process. As George Miller's (1956) research shows that short-term memory is limited in the number of elements it can contain simultaneously. At the same time, as Cornsweet (1970) remarked - "All organisms select part of the information in their environment to register or act upon, and the rest of that information is lost to them. The factors that determine the way in which this selection is performed are properties of the organism itself." The problem raises here is that when presented with large 9

11 amount of technical drawings, the client will reach his/her informational bottleneck very soon. Some people may argue that when presented with the full information, the subject has the flexibility to select the part that is needed. However, research by Sweller (1988) suggests that an individual's knowledge base which is the essential part for the purpose of problem solving are acquired over a lifetime of learning, and may have other schemas contained within themselves. He also pointed out that: The difference between an expert and a novice is that a novice hasn't acquired the schemas of an expert. Learning requires a change in the schematic structures of long term memory and is demonstrated by performance that progresses from clumsy, error-prone, slow and difficult to smooth and effortless. The change in performance occurs because as the learner becomes increasingly familiar with the material, the cognitive characteristics associated with the material are altered so that it can be handled more efficiently by working memory. Moreover, research conducted by Dobert (1999) also shows the different way of interpreting the architectural plans between a novice and an expert. Based on Sweller (1988) and Dobert's (1999) research we can conclude that to a person without formal architectural training, the information on the technical drawings are not formated. The information required to visualize a specific point in the architecture is scattered on several different illustrations. Thus, to select the appropriate information is hard for them. This will greatly reduce both the fidelity and speed of the communication process. This problem is illustrated below with the fallingwater designed by Frank Lloyd Wright as an example. We can see that to visualize the form of the architecture as a whole, the information needs to be collected from the plans and facades. 10

12 Figure 6 Fallingwater Main Floor Plan Figure 7 Fallingwater Second Floor Plan 11

13 Figure 8 Fallingwater South Elevation Figure 9 Fallingwater Perspective 12

14 Based on the discussion earlier, we can conclude with confidence that to increase the fidelity of the communication the communicator should try to minimize the working memory load of the communication process the information. 3 Conclusion According to the previous discussion we can draw the conclusion that in order to improve the architectural communication process the requirement of mental imagery generation of the information receiver should be kept at its minimum for the purpose of leaving more capacity for the more important spatial reasoning process. At the same time, the information load of the working memory should also be kept as small as possible. Three-dimensional visualization, when compared with the conventional ways of architectural communication which uses technical drawings, prompts both the idea of minimizing mental imagery generation on the client side and the idea of information decomposition. There are several advantages three-dimensional visualization has over the conventional communication techniques. First of all, using three-dimensional visualization frees the audience from collecting the sparsely distributed information from the technical illustrations to generate the mental image. Secondly, threedimensional visualization also eliminates the information analyzing process which follows the low-level vision in the conventional communication method. The purpose of this information analyzing process is to connect the abstracted information (various weight of lines) processed by the low-level visual process to the knowledge in the long-term memory. Thirdly, as we discussed previously, three-dimensional visualization frees the audience from the intensive mental image generation process by providing directly the three-dimensional form of the objects. The following diagrams illustrate the different segments of human mind in the architectural communication process. Information Collection 2D Object Recognition Mental Image generation Spatial Reasoning Figure 10 - Mind Segment (Conventional Communication) 13

15 Mental Image generation Spatial Reasoning Figure 11 - Mind Segment (3D Visualization) In summary, when presented with three-dimensional images of the architecture, the human mind does not have to generate the mental imagery from the abstracted architectural drawings. Thus leaves more space to the actual spatial reasoning process. Moreover, the series of three-dimensional images or three-dimensional animation decomposes the information of the architectural concept into small chunks. Thus, avoids the chance of information overwhelming during the communication process. 14

16 4 Reference Akin, O. (1986), Psychology of Architectural Design, Pion Limited, London. Berlo, D. (1960), The Process of Communication: An Introduction to Theory and Practice, Michigan State University, U.S.A Biederman, I. (1990), Higher-Level Vision, in Visual Cognition and Action, edited by Osherson D.N. et. al., The MIT Press, MA. Brebner, J. (1982), Environmental Psychology in Building Design, Applied Science Publisher Ltd, England. Cornsweet, T.N. (1970), Visual Perception, Academic Press, NY Dobert. J.D. (1999), Expertise in the Comprehension of Architectural Plans (Knowledge Acquistion and Inference Making), in Visual and Spatial Reasoning in Design 99 Gero, J. S and Tversky, B., Key Centre of Design Computing and Cognition, University of Sydney. Finke, R.A. (1989), Principles of Mental Imagery, The MIT Press, MA. Forty, A. (2000), Words and Buildings: A Vocabulary of Modern Architecture, Thames & Hudson Ltd, London. Holgate, A. (1992), Aesthetics of Built Form, Oxford University Press, New York. Kosslyn, S.M. (1999), Visual Mental Images as Re-Presentations of the World: A Cognitive Neuroscience Approach, in Visual and Spatial Reasoning in Design 99 edited by Gero, J. S and Tversky, B., Key Centre of Design Computing and Cognition, University of Sydney. Kosslyn, S.M. (1990), Mental Imagery, in Visual Cognition and Action, edited by Osherson D.N. et. al., The MIT Press, MA. Miller, G.A. (1956). The magical number seven, plus or minus two: Some limits on our capacity for processing information. Psychological Review, 63, Osherson, D. N. et. al. (1990), Visual Cognition and Action, The MIT Press, MA. Shah, P. and Miyake, A. (1996), The separability of working memory resources for spatial thinking and language processing: An individual differences approach, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 125, Stillings (editor) (1995), Theory of Visual Images, Cognitive Science, Neil A. Sweller, J. (1988), Cognitive load during problem solving: Effects on learning, Cognitive Science, 12,

17 Yuille, A.L. and Ullman, S. (1990), Computional Theories of Low-Level Vision, in Visual Cognition and Action, edited by Osherson D.N. et. al., The MIT Press, MA. 16

2. Strategic Knowledge, Chunks, and Cognitive Segments

2. Strategic Knowledge, Chunks, and Cognitive Segments STRATEGIC KNOWLEDGE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN AN EXPERT AND A NOVICE DESIGNER MANOLYA KAVAKLI Charles Sturt University, Australia and JOHN S GERO University of Sydney, Australia Abstract. This chapter investigates