How Room Designs Affect Your Work and Mood?
By Emily Anthes  

  Architects have  long  intuited  that  the places we inhabit can affect our  thoughts, feelings and behaviors. But now, half a century after Salk’s inspiring  excursion,  behavioral  scientists  are  giving these hunches an empirical basis. They are unearthing tantalizing clues about how  to design spaces  that promote creativity, keep  students  focused  and  alert,  and  lead  to relaxation and social intimacy.
  Such efforts are already  informing design,  leading  to cutting-edge projects, such as  residences  for seniors with dementia  in which  the building  itself  is part of  the  treat-ment. Similarly,  the new structure also  includes elements that foster alertness and creativity. What’s more, researchers are  just getting  started. “All  this  is  in  its  infancy,”  says architect David Allison, who heads  the Architecture and Health program at Clemson University. “But  the emerging neuroscience  research might give us even better  insights into how the built environment impacts our health and well-being, how we perform in environments and how we feel in environments.”
  Now research has emerged  that could help  illuminate Salk’s observation  that aspects of  the physical environ-ment can  influence creativity.  In 2007 Joan Meyers-Levy, a professor of marketing at  the University of Minnesota, reported  that  the height of a  room’s ceiling affects how people  think. Because of her earlier  finding  that elevated ceilings make people  feel physically  less constrained,  the investigator posits  that higher ceilings encourage people to  think more  freely, which may  lead  them  to make more abstract connections. The sense of confnement prompted by low ceilings, on the other hand, may inspire a more detailed, statistical outlook—which might be preferable under some circumstances.
  Furniture  choices  can  influence human  interaction. Some of  the earliest environmental psychology  research focused on seating plans in residential health care facilities;scientists discovered  that  the common practice of placing chairs along  the walls of  resident day  rooms or  lounges actually prevented socializing. A better plan  to encourage interaction,  researchers  found,  is organizing  furniture  in small groupings throughout the room.
  So far scientists have focused mainly on public buildings, such as hospitals, schools and stores. Thus, a home-owner interested in boosting his or her mind through design must do some  extrapolating.  “We have  a very  limited number of studies, so we’re almost  looking at  the problem through a straw,” Clemson’s Allison says. “Now we need to fnd more general patterns. How do you  take answers  to very specifc questions and make broad, generalized use of them? That’s what we’re all struggling with.”
  The  struggle  should pay off, experts believe, because when designers  fabricate buildings with  the mind  in mind, the occupants beneft. Well-designed special care units  for Alzheimer’s patients reduced anxiety, aggression,  social withdrawal, depression  and psychosis,  according  to  a 2003 study by Zeisel and his colleagues. And school design can account  for between 10 and 15 percent of variation  in elementary school students’ scores on a standardized test of reading and math skills, suggests a 2001  report by  investi-gators at the University of Georgia.

室内设计如何影响工作与心情
埃米莉 •安特斯

    长久以来，建筑师们意识到，居所能够影响我们的思维、情感与行为。然而现在，距索尔克这一激励人心的探索已过去了半个世纪，行为科学家们正在为这些预测提供实证依据。他们正在急于发掘大量的线索以期设计出一种空间，能提高创造性，保持学生注意力集中和头脑敏锐，并且使人精神放松和产生亲近感。
    诸如此类的努力已经影响到了建筑设计，并成就了一些前沿工程，如在为老人痴呆症患者设计住宅时，建筑本身就是治疗的一部分。同样，这类新构造还包含了培养敏锐性和创造性的因素。此外，研究人员只是刚刚涉足这一领域。负责克莱姆森大学建筑与健康项目的建筑师戴维•埃里森说： “所有这些还只处于起步阶段。但是，新兴的神经科学研究可以使我们更好地洞悉建筑环境如何影响我们的健康与幸福，我们在环境中如何行为、如何感知等问题。 ”  
    现在，这类研究已经兴起，这能够帮助阐明索尔克的发现，即自然环境中的一些因素能够影响创造力。2007年，明尼苏达州大学营销学教授琼 • 迈耶斯 • 列维在其报告中称，房间天花板的高度会影响人们的思维方式。由于她此前的研究工作已表明，高天花板一般不会让人身体上产生压抑感，由此，调研人员假定，天花板越高，人们的想象就越丰富，这可能会促使他们有更多的抽象联想。相反，天花板较低会引发压抑感，从而可能有助于得出更为详细的统计预测，这在某些情况下也许是可取的。
    家具的选择会影响人际交往。早期的一些环境心理学的研究重点是如何安置居民区的卫生保健设施。科学家们发现，常见的做法是把椅子沿居民休息室或娱乐室的墙壁摆放，这实际上限制了社交活动。研究人员发现，鼓励互动的一个较好的计划是，把家具分成小组散放在房间里。
    迄今为止，科学家们主要集中研究了医院、学校和商店等公共建筑。因此，个人房主如有意通过室内设计提高心态，必须进行一些推断。克莱姆森大学的艾利森说道：“我们进行的研究还非常有限，所以，我们几乎是一叶障目不见森林。现在，我们需要找到更通用的模式。我们怎么能以偏概全呢？这正是我们努力的目标。 ”导师们相信，天道酬勤，只要设计师潜心设计建筑物，住户便会受益。根据 2003 年的蔡泽尔与其同事所作的研究，为老年痴呆症病人精心设计的特护中心减轻了病人的焦虑、敌对、社交恐惧、抑郁和精神病症状。   

    2001 年佐治亚大学调研者的报告表明，学校设计在小学生阅读和数学技能标准化测试的成绩变化因素中能占到 10%-15% 的比例。
——选自《我爱读英文》