3 min readHere’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:
- Cities could benefit from the growing field of neuroaesthetics, which examines the effects aesthetic features have on the brain.
- Research has found that humans are adapted to respond to motifs in nature, and mental health improves when exposed to such patterns.
- Incorporating more natural and nature-inspired elements into urban areas could have positive health effects for city dwellers.
New York City may appear to be a hellscape of skyscrapers shrouded in a haze of smog, but beyond the pollution, congestion and gasoline rainbows, there is a secret oasis in the heart of Manhattan. Locals and tourists alike can climb or take the elevator to the top of Pier 57 and find themselves in Rooftop Park. This living, breathing realm contrasts with the harshness of the cityscape below, and the unlikely glimpses of green among industrial metal and glass are having a positive effect on visitors there.
Neuroaesthetics merges aesthetics with neuroscience to explain how sensory experiences affect the brain. When applied to urban environments, it examines the ways in which sensory aspects of architecture and other features of cities influence responses through perception, stress, cognition, and social interactions. Cities can drive you crazy with noise, pollution, and stress, but they also offer colors, lights, and fractal structures whose repeating patterns have been shown to be therapeutic. Unfortunately, environments that promote mental wellness are not accessible to everyone. Previous studies show that aesthetic deprivation in low-income and marginalized urban communities can make other disadvantages, like environmental stress, even worse.
“These conditions may reinforce social exclusion, reduce perceived self-worth, and compound stress from other environmental and socio-economic stressors,” said psychologist Alexandros Lavdas of the Athens campus of Webster University in Athens, Greece, in a study recently published in MDPI. “Conceptually, this suggests that neuroaesthetic quality is part of environmental justice: equitable access to environments that are not only clean and safe but also perceptually and affectively supportive.”
The study points out that city-dwellers need a bounty of greens and blues in their surroundings—seeing nothing but a monotonous blur of gray most the time can be detrimental. But views of the sky, or of grass and trees, are often blocked out by our concrete jungles. Other stressors are crumbling buildings, infrastructure that breaks down, disorder, creeping decay, and a lack of safe public spaces. The study adopts a framework for rating urban spaces along three psychological dimensions: coherence (the organization and alignment of structures), fascination (layers of detail and natural elements like those in Rooftop Park), and hominess (proportions scaled especially for humans, materials that create a feeling of warmth, and outside views).
Lavdas thinks these elements are psychologically relevant because they can affect stress levels. Monotony, disorder, and an absence of uplifting visuals leaves your brain longing for things it desperately needs but cannot find. The cure lies in the idea of “living geometry”: the metabolic activity of plants and animals is reflected in the order and complexity of geometric motifs, including fractals. Merely gazing at a tree or a similarly-shaped object provides a mental reset because our brains respond positively to fractals and other types of symmetry found in the natural world. Because humans evolved to interact with natural environments long before the rise of the first skyscraper, our perception and cognition are adapted to respond positively to aesthetic features like those found in nature.
The study notes that when people who are exposed to natural surroundings—or to structures and art inspired by nature—they feel healthier, concentrate more easily, experience less anxiety, have better self-esteem, and even find that their memories work better. Neuroaesthetic research uses virtual and augmented reality, eye tracking, electroencephalography (EEG), and neuroimaging to measure how exposure to nature produces all these benefits. The results show that incorporating nature into urban design does a lot to improve our psychological well-being.
“Design practice and urban policy need to move beyond purely stylistic, ideologically- or market-driven criteria to embrace evidence on how built form affects the brain and body,” Lavdas said. “In this perspective, beauty and health are not separate concerns: a neuroaesthetically coherent, biophilic, and vital urban environment is likely to be one that supports psychological resilience, social cohesion, and long-term physical health.”
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Elizabeth Rayne is a creature who writes. Her work has appeared in Popular Mechanics, Ars Technica, SYFY WIRE, Space.com, Live Science, Den of Geek, Forbidden Futures and Collective Tales. She lurks right outside New York City with her parrot, Lestat. When not writing, she can be found drawing, playing the piano or shapeshifting.