| The Psychology of Perception, Threshold, and Emotion in Interior Glass Design |
| Data dodania: 05.04.23 |
|
This paper will discuss the psychology of perception, threshold, and emotion in interior glass design. Color theory and referenced material behind threshold will be presented, and the implication of threshold in the design and specification of glass in various architectural applications will be examined.
Humans have the ability to discern color and contrast but there is a range of differences in colors and contrast that are not perceivable to the human brain. The signal strength between the differences has to be great enough for the mind to be able to conclude there is a difference. This phenomenon is known as threshold.
The emotional content of shapes and colors will also be investigated. What shapes and colors are most pleasing and how aesthetics impact the psychological state of occupants will be presented. Situational attributes provided by environmental conditions impact the behaviour of individuals.
The way people act can be significantly altered by involving authorized direction
It thus becomes ultimately important that the design of interior spaces highlights and supports the ideal conditions matching the culture, experience, or wanted outcomes of occupants and visitors. There is a level of integrity and responsibility that must fall upon the architect or designer in meeting both corporate and societal needs in keeping with the greater good.
Figure 1. Anti-Reflective Glass Example
Humans tend to give over their decision making power, logic, and reason to the control of a higher authority if put in certain authority/ subordinate roles and provided with reinforcing environmental aesthetics, conditions, or situations.
Milgram went through great efforts in his experiments to create a simulated shock machine in a laboratory setting that was so real looking that it fooled two electrical engineers (Russell, 2011).
Picture 1. Blue and Green Lines are the Same Colour
In his experiments, Milgram would have a test participant issue a shock to an actor that appeared to be another test subject.
The shock was fake, but the actor made it appear to be real. A doctor or facilitator wearing a lab coat, holding a clip board, and providing the official authorization to continue onward would prompt the test participant to issue greater levels of corrective shocks to a the actor.
Part of the success of the experiments has been as much the acting and sensationalized production as the study itself (Reicher & Haslam, 2011).
The experiment shows how easily people are moved to do things that harm others and justify these actions through outside control. But, the experiment can also show authority how better to control the general public. Have we learned to be wary of authority, or have we gained useful insight into how authority can better control the public? Current research suggests continued support for control through environmental and authoritarian factors.
Navarick (2012) suggests that there are three stages in a decision making process of a participant in whether to withdraw from an experiment. The stages are priming (collecting evidence), decision (mental), and choice (action). Priming is where a person is affected by the situational factors such as aesthetics, design, colors, lighting, and the atmosphere created by the “set” and the people and processes within the environment.
Figure 2. Relative Brightness of Common Lighting Situations
The situational priming is magnified by things such as salience of the evidence intuited through all the senses such as emotional experience, and visual, tactile, and auditory feedback.
The decision stage is where the participant decides what to do next. Another experiment utilizing authority and environmental situational factors to control the behaviour of test subjects was Zimbardo’s infamous Stanford prison experiment.
Students were randomly selected to play the role of guards or prisoners in a simulated prison environment. The prison guards became tortuous and embodied the behaviours of the provided situation.
Zimbardo was forced to stop the experiment by a graduate student as he and the participants had lost touch with reality and accepted the evils being perpetrated by the participants as tolerable behaviour in the given situation (McDermott, 2007).
Design for Good
Figure 3. Storefront with Anti-Reflective Glass
That being the case, perception, threshold, colour, and shape all are important variables in framing the human emotions derived from architectural designs and specifically in glass design.
Glass can bring light, add clarity, provide colour, and create atmosphere through contrast, pattern, and shape. The simple synergy of space and its interaction with movement can tailor emotions and response. Creativity can be enhanced, performance benefited, and well- being safeguarded.
Little things, sparse usage, and unique features make a big difference to observers. Redundancy of colour or shapes tend to cause lost impact and may be overwhelming.
The environment created with situational context effects neural processing and impacts social perception (Lieberman, 2006).
When a building is designed with shapes and colours that move people to collaborative and positive outcomes, positive results ensue.
Emotional context of environment impacts the way humans perceive neutral faces (Mobbs, 2006).
A welcoming building design will predispose occupants to being more receptive of each other. A receptive building, a receptive organization, and a well-received client.
Storefronts may have harsh angularity further aggravated by shiny lights bouncing off the exterior glass. The sharp shapes and corners may create an emotional response opposite of what is wanted; avoidance of angular and straight edges innately seen as teeth, razors, or knives and provoking a flight or fight response from consumers.
Softening of hard surfaces and reduction of angularity becomes a solution. If the glass was not noticeable in the above example, then attention of the consumer could be brought into the store. A subconscious emotional welcome may be felt as the colours, curves, and features of the store would be forefront in the senses.
This threshold phenomenon is what sets anti-reflective glass types apart. Reflections become unnoticeable when they cause a contrast or color deviance of less than 0.5%.
In environments where the glass has been designed for high transparency, the light levels are similar on both sides. This is why it becomes important to utilize materials with the lowest reflectivity possible to minimize the chance for distraction.
Distractibility Index
One of the standard measurements in colour matching taken from the textile industry is delta E (dEcmc) which is a calculation combining lightness or contrast and colour variance (Hunt, 2004).
While differences in contrast are more allowable than colour, there is an acceptable range set in commercial applications. Colour specialties industry standard treats a deviation of less than 0.5% dEcmc as being an indiscernible colour and contrast difference (Green, & MacDonald, 2002).
However, not all eyes are the same. In regards to contrast, the difference in lightness and darkness, there needs to be greater than a 1% difference in order for humans to see an apparent difference nearly 100% of the time (Malm, 1999).
According to Malm (1999), in cases of contrast level differences of less than 0.5%, the difference becomes not noticeable to nearly everyone:
Contrast Threshold of 1%
Since 1860, scientific tests and research have found and maintained that threshold contrast levels necessary for something to be seen is 1% for most objects within a wide variety of environments (Pelli & Bex, 2013).
A thorough review of past measurements show that the threshold contrast has remained at 1% independent of dimensions and light levels (Pelli & Bex, 2013).
Figure 4. Left to Right Transition from 0% to 10% White and 0% to 4% White
The simple test used for research of this phenomenon consists of two candles of the same light level being used to illuminate a screen or wall. One has a simple solid and opaque cylinder place in front to cast a shadow on the screen.
By varying the distance of candles from the screen until the shadow is perceived or not perceived the ratio of light between the unobstructed screen and the shadow cast on the screen can be calculated.
The amount of light difference along the edge of the shadow is determined by the far candle with the opaque cylinder in front as the amount of light from a point source varies as a function of the inverse of the distance squared (Pelli & Bex, 2013). The measurement of threshold comes at the point when the observer can just barely see the shadow.
This technique consistently results in observation of a 1% threshold (Pelli & Bex, 2013). Other methods such as using a spinning disc with a black section of a slice that when spun created a black ring have also shown this 1% level as the threshold over a wide range of light levels (Pelli & Bex, 2013).
The human eye detects colours with differing specialised receptors which are excited by blue, green, and red wavelengths of light. Each receptor reacts similarly to colour and light level changes but follow the same general rules as threshold for contrast.
The required level of cone excitation change for threshold detection of colour signals remains equal for a given background excitation level (Jennings & Barbur, 2010).
Each cone reacts independently of each other in the level necessary for detection enabling predictive modelling of detection thresholds necessary for any specified background light level and colour (Jennings & Barbur, 2010).
S-cones are excited by blue wavelengths, M-cones are excited by green wavelengths, and L-cones are excited by red wavelengths. Research supports a significant and strong linear threshold relationship (r2=.90 and .94 respectively) between the M- and Lcone excitations changes required to differentiate between foreground and background colour and brightness levels (Jennings & Barbur, 2010). Blue cones are much less sensitive to excitation changes. The M (green) and L cones (red) required approximately .44% - .69% excitation change to reach threshold levels necessary to be detected (Jennings & Barbur, 2010).
Light is always reflecting from glass surfaces. The question is whether it is visible or invisible to the observer. When the level of reflection does not reach threshold, it is said to be invisible.
The contrast threshold of 1% and the colour threshold of .44% - .69% interplay in the effect reflections have on the observer when looking through glass. When the reflection causes a combined light or colour level difference that reaches threshold, the reflection becomes noticeable.
For simplification purposes, under .5% has been selected as below threshold for contrast and colour as represented in the findings of the referenced studies. Similarly, 1% threshold is presented as a level of contrast or colour difference where the change in level is apparent and seen by 100% of normal observers.
It is important to understand these ranges in respect to reflection. The reflection is analogous to the light shadow cast by the far candle in the prior referenced example. Reflections cause changes in perceived light levels, contrast, or colours if they reach the threshold level.
Coatings, glass chemistry, and reflections may all have an impact on the perception of colour through the glass but most attention has only been paid to the colour change imparted by the physical glass itself and not the reflections.
Colours reflected from behind the observer may foul and obscure the true colours of the scene observed. There is not a measurement or index associated with this shift in perception relegated to coloured reflections but they are nonetheless important.
For instance, a colour next to a colour affects its appearance. A line may appear both blue and green depending on the colour next to it (Picture 1).
The line is the same colour but the Purple and orange colours frame the context in which the colour is viewed. The eye and mind automatically judge the line based upon the nearby reference changing what is seen. Reflections may also impact the colours seen through the glass in the same manner.
Views become breathless through antireflective glass. The type and application of anti-reflective coating can provide glare- free glass storefronts with visible light reflection ranging from less than 0.5% up to 4% as well as produce little to no discernable colour shift.
Anti-reflective storefronts are available in monolithic, tempered or laminated, and insulated units. With large formats also available, the many fabrication options give unrivalled flexibility in aesthetically pleasing applications.
Many glass fabricators stock and custom process anti-reflective glass to bring life to architectural designer creations. Imagine an environment where beauty flows effortlessly together without the harsh reflections of unforgiving float glass.
Figure 1 is an example of how anti-reflective glass creates separation without reflection.
Today’s anti-reflective coating technologies produce glass that limits glare and unsightly reflections in numerous unique applications.
These high-tech coatings remove glass distractions from picture frame glass allowing the artwork to leap off the wall and become the focus of attention. Anti-reflective storefronts invite customer attention and welcome passers-by to come in and shop.
When used in projection systems or displays, the light or visual media smoothly transmits through the glass capturing the viewer’s attention without double images or visual light-front interference.
Unfortunately, traditional glass also creates a secondary plane of focus pulling attention away from what is in the store to the reflections on the glass surfaces. Anti-reflective glass can virtually eliminate the reflection enabling the store’s inner beauty to speak for itself. Traditional glass reflects 8% of the visible light. What does this really mean in real life?
Only 92% of the outside light source reaches the inside of the storefront and provides a maximum potential for surface viewing through the same glass of 84.6% since 8% of light suffers from internal reflection on the way back out. Maximum illuminance becomes 100% when no glass separates the light source and the object and no glass or substance separates the object and the observer.
Brightness and Reflection Issues
The direct reflection ratio allows comparison of visible light-front distraction between differing solutions. This ratio of “reflection annoyance” can be measured and provide a “distractibility index” to compare different solutions. Simply put, the amount of reflection divided by the amount of maximum illuminance gives a ratio that is measured on a scale of 0 to ∞.
Zero would indicate that there is no reflectance no matter how much light reaches the objects within the storefront and back out to the observer. Infinity would indicate a perfect mirror where all light is reflected at the glass storefront and no light reaches the objects within the storefront and back out to the observer. How does anti-reflective glass impact the visual presence of a store, display, or building?
When undistracted viewing is desired, finding a solution that provides the minimum colour, contrast, and brightness differential is the answer. In the real world, the architect and designer have limitless options at their fingertips.
Figure 3 is a real life example of a storefront with a high performance anti-reflective coating that has visible light reflectance equal to only 0.5%. It allows display merchandise to be protected from the elements while the colours, textures, and beauty are breathtakingly presented without glare to distract.
As previously discussed, monolithic float glass has visible light reflectance of 8%. A maximum of 92% of the outside source light reaches the objects within the storefront.
Additionally, the brightness of the image of the objects as seen by the outside observer has been reduced by another 8% as the light passes again through the glass and another 8% of the visible light reflects back into the store.
Now, let’s calculate the ratio for a storefront with uncoated monolithic float glass:
But since the maximum illuminance is only 84.6%, the effect of the reflection is 9.5% of the value of maximum illuminance. When an object is brightly coloured the reflection annoyance is bad enough, but when a darker coloured object with fine detail and nuances is displayed, the “distractibility index” understates the problem.
Now, let’s calculate the ratio for a storefront the uses monolithic anti-reflective glass as shown in the photo:
In this example, the lower amount of interference does not distract the observer from the object. The difference in “distractibility index” can be significant and the ability to see the item on display is increased dramatically. The two examples show a 1900% difference in harsh glare and bouncing light.
Anti-reflective glass provides this type of benefit. The lower the direct reflection ratio of the anti-reflection glass, the higher the ability of the observer to focus on the objects displayed within the storefront.
This threshold phenomenon is what sets anti-reflective glass types apart. Reflections become unnoticeable when they cause a contrast or colour deviance of less than 0.5%.
In environments where the glass has been designed for high transparency, the light levels are similar on both sides. This is why it becomes important to utilize the lowest reflectivity possible to minimize the chance for distraction.
The difference between 1.0% and 0.5% may not seem like a lot, but it is the difference between a reflection being 100% perceived and nearly imperceptible. In other words, 0.5% is nearly 0% and 1% is 100% - a huge difference in perception for such a small difference in surface reflection.
Figure 4 shows a white block transition within the darker rectangle above. The left most line represents 0% reflectance/contrast whereas the far right line represents 4% for the transition with the line segments shown. 100% of people surveyed saw contrast differences above 1% (third line from the left). To the left of the second line, the white block became completely unseen.
The article was based on a lecture presented at the GLASS PERFORMANCE DAYS 2019 Conference, which took place on June 26-28, 2019. Tampere, Finland
James R. Gulnick
|
