Understanding the dynamics between complexity in environmental design and its effect on the psychological arousal of your target customer is critical for today’s experiential designers to ensure that visitors visit, stay, learn or buy in your designed environments.
Some of the dynamics between complexity and arousal in live environments have been described by psychologists in the context of behavioral and environmental psychology. Wundt, a late 19th century German psychologist, theorized that when faced with varying levels of intensity, individuals prefer moderate levels of intensity and will always seek to maintain this level. He demonstrated through experiments that increasing intensity improves arousal and consequently pleasure for individuals up to a point at which any further intensity creates decreasing pleasure. He mapped this concept, represented by the typical bell curve also known in this context as the so-named Wundt Curve.
Some of the dynamics between complexity and arousal in live environments have been described by psychologists in the context of behavioral and environmental psychology. Wundt, a late 19th century German psychologist, theorized that when faced with varying levels of intensity, individuals prefer moderate levels of intensity and will always seek to maintain this level. He demonstrated through experiments that increasing intensity improves arousal and consequently pleasure for individuals up to a point at which any further intensity creates decreasing pleasure. He mapped this concept, represented by the typical bell curve also known in this context as the so-named Wundt Curve.
In the mid 20th century, the psychologist Berlyne used Wundt’s work to help explain his theories on human behavior in the environment, modifying intensity to complexity. Berlyne’s adaptation of the Wundt curve is used to illustrate that an individual’s arousal and pleasure increases with complexity up to a point – the “optimum level of arousal” and any additional complexity beyond this level will create decreasing levels of pleasure. Conversely, because Berlyne theorizes that individuals always want to maintain an optimal level of pleasure, individuals in an environment that provide sub-optimal arousal, be it uninteresting or downright boring, will be motivated to increase their present level of complexity and arousal. Think of an overwhelming retail environment during the Christmas season, individuals will naturally look to mediate their perceived complexity to reach their optimum level of arousal. Our hope, of course, is that they don’t leave the environments we have designed to do it.
Individuals mediate their levels of complexity through what Berlyne calls “exploratory” behavior. In exploratory behavior, an individual’s sensory system constantly tries to clarify stimuli in order to gain information on their environment and reduce uncertainty in order to decide, in our context, the next aisle to walk down or the next product display to look at. Additional complexity in the environment intensifies exploratory behavior up to a point when the sensory system becomes overloaded trying to interpret multiple stimuli – too many people, too many signs, too much media and too much noise. Ultimately these high levels of complexity create emotional conflict that individuals seek to resolve.
Understanding and managing this spectrum of conflict and resolution inherent in environmental experiences is at the heart of a successful design strategy because it is the same emotional journey we enjoy in a great drama. More and more anthropological research is telling us that all humans are wired to universally appreciate drama across all cultures. In fact, despite our diversity of culture, the world still demonstrates a persistent theatrically we all share from the hunters on the remote islands of Southeast Asia, to nomads in Siberia to your attendees on the exhibition floor or shoppers in your store. Therefore, drama can be a design language for your environment that is innately understood and compelling to your customers.
No comments:
Post a Comment