Philosophy & Architecture

Philosophy & Architecture special number of philosophy@LISBON (International eJournal) 5 | 2016 edited by Tomás N. Castro with Maribel Mendes Sobreira Centro de Filosofia da Universidade de Lisboa ISSN 2182-437

Evaluating assumptions of scales for subjective assessment of thermal environments – Do laypersons perceive them the way, we researchers believe?

International audienc

More than skin deep: body representation beyond primary somatosensory cortex

The neural circuits underlying initial sensory processing of somatic information are relatively well understood. In contrast, the processes that go beyond primary somatosensation to create more abstract representations related to the body are less clear. In this review, we focus on two classes of higher-order processing beyond somatosensation. Somatoperception refers to the process of perceiving the body itself, and particularly of ensuring somatic perceptual constancy. We review three key elements of somatoperception: (a) remapping information from the body surface into an egocentric reference frame (b) exteroceptive perception of objects in the external world through their contact with the body and (c) interoceptive percepts about the nature and state of the body itself. Somatorepresentation, in contrast, refers to the essentially cognitive process of constructing semantic knowledge and attitudes about the body, including: (d) lexical-semantic knowledge about bodies generally and one’s own body specifically, (e) configural knowledge about the structure of bodies, (f) emotions and attitudes directed towards one’s own body, and (g) the link between physical body and psychological self. We review a wide range of neuropsychological, neuroimaging and neurophysiological data to explore the dissociation between these different aspects of higher somatosensory function

Limits of Kansei – Kansei unlimited

This article discusses momentary limitations of the Kansei Engineering methods. There are for example the focus on the evaluation of colour and form factors, as well as the highly time consuming creation of the questionnaires. To overcome these limits we firstly suggest the integration of word lists from related research fields, like sociology and cognitive psychology on product emotions in the Kansei questionnaires. Thereafter we present a study on the wide range of Kansei attributes treated in an industrial setting. Concept words used by designers are being collected through word maps and categorized into attributes. In a third step we introduce a user-product interaction schema in which the Kansei attributes from the study are positioned. This schema unfolds potential expansion points for future applications of Kansei engineering beyond its current limits