765
Work 54 (2016) 765–771
DOI:10.3233/WOR-162374
IOS Press
Guest Editorial
Modeling the relationship between the
environment and human experiences
P. Vinka,∗ , C. Bazleyb,∗ and K. Jacobsc
a Faculty
of Industrial Design Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands
Inc., Carbondale, CO, USA
c Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA
b JimConna
Abstract. Within this special issue, different aspects of the environment are studied: aspects that are distant from the human
body, close to the body and touching the human body. Consequently, different human senses are involved in these studies
as well as the different consequences and effects on the brain and human behaviour. This special issue also highlights many
remaining questions about the effects and relationships between environments and human beings and the need for more
studies and research. In particular, future studies are needed that address long-term effects and the effects of the combinations
of elements which provide comfort or discomfort.
Keywords: Comfort, discomfort, transportation, office design, expectations
1. The influence of the environment on the
human in a model
According to the Environmental Design Technical Group (EDTG) of the Human Factors and
Ergonomics Society [1], “Environmental design
is the discipline concerned with the relationship
between human behavior and the designed environment”. This special issue of WORK consists of 21
papers concerned with research in the area of environmental design. These papers studied environment
and many designed environments for improvement
of performance, well-being, comfort or experience
∗ Address
for correspondence: Conne Bazley, 5966 CountyRoad 109, Carbondale, CO 81623, USA. Tel.: +1 970 618
5895; E-mail: cbazley@yahoo.com and Peter Vink, University
of Technology, Landbergstraat 15, 2628 CE Delft, The Netherlands. Tel.: +31 15 278 14 38; Fax: +31 15 2787179; E-mail:
p.vink@tudelft.nl.
of humans in contact with the environment. The
relationship with the human and the environment is
schematically shown in Fig. 1. The scheme shows
the environment, the human sensor noticing the environment, the brain processing the input, and the
behavior. The process may commence as follows:
the human brain decides to focus on a sense organ.
These sense organs record a signal, which is processed by the brain. During this processing between
the senses and the brain, experiences and the human
state play a role. The human state can be excited or
relaxed, which influences the way the input is processed. This process has an influence on the behavior
of the human being. Time is an important factor.
Sometimes the process starts with seeing the environment, which leads to the brain taking an action.
Sometimes the brain activates sensors searching for
an object such as an exit door. Time is also of importance as usually this action fits into a ‘customer
1051-9815/16/$35.00 © 2016 – IOS Press and the authors. All rights reserved
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P. Vink et al. / Modeling the relationship between the environment and human experiences
Fig. 1. This schema shows the relationship between the environment and behavior.
Fig. 2. An example of how the eye (a human sensor) notices the environment.
journey’ or other sequence of activities and Vink [2]
has shown that previous experiences influence next
experiences.
An example of how the eye (a human sensor)
notices the environment and affects behavior is shown
in Fig. 2. When a human wants to leave an environment and the brain sends a signal to the eyes which
are directed to look for a door. The eyes (sensor) see
the door and the brain processes a signal to move the
body towards the door (behavior).
The human has many sensors and some sensors
record only processes within the body, such as recording whether the bladder is full. The focus of this
special issue is outside the human body: the environment. Many sensors record the environment close
to or touching the body, such as temperature, pressure, taste, itch and pain. The eyes, nose and ear are
capable of sensing parts in the environment close to
and distant from the body.
Within this special issue, different aspects of the
environment are studied: aspects that are distant from
the human body, more close and even touching the
human body (See Table 1). Consequently, different
human senses are involved in these studies as well as
the different consequences of the effects on the brain
and behavior.
P. Vink et al. / Modeling the relationship between the environment and human experiences
767
Table 1
The highlighted areas indicate the areas of focus for each featured paper in this special issue of WORK on environmental design
Topic
Author
Core of the Title
Office
Office
Office
Office
Healthcare
Healthcare
Healthcare
Automobile
Automobile
Automobile
Aircraft
Aircraft
Aircraft
Aircraft
Aircraft
Aircraft
Aircraft
Ship
Method
Method
Method
Groenesteijn
Bodin Danielsson
Bazley
Smith-Jackson
Luximon
Roberts
Smith
Wagner
Van Veen
Kilincsoy
Menegon
Nijholt
Smulders
Kokorikou
Hiemstra-van Mastrigt
Lewis
Ahmadpour
Mallam
Kok
Roelofsen
Stavrakos
Dynamic office work station and performance
Office interior and employee welfare
Effects of eastern and western interior design
Open plan office and socio-technique
Thermographic study on face masks
Staff perception in various care residents
Private and multi-bed patient rooms
Storage possibilities in a car
Posture variation in a car while driving
Pressure distribution in car seat design
Aircraft seat (dis)comfort
Back contour in aircraft seat
Comfort and pressure in aircraft seat
Light weight aircraft seat
Activities in the aircraft
Distracting from aircraft discomfort
Personal and shared aircraft space
Work environment in a ship
Seat design process of professionals and students
Thermophysiological model for interiors
Methods to design product touching the body
2. Aspects studied
An aspect of the environment that touches the body
is generally physical in nature, e.g., a headphone [3],
the backrest contact [4] or a vehicle seat [5–8]. The
environment may be close to the human body, i.e.,
the storage possibilities around the driver or passenger in a car [9] or a virtual reality system distracting
the driver from discomfort [10]. The effect of people
seated next to each other (neighbors) in an aircraft
[11] and variations in posture, which result in more
comfort [12], are examples of environments close
to the body. These studies also show the aspects of
human-to-human as well as human relationship to
the environment and the effects on humans within
the environment.
Examples of a distant environment and human
relationship may be the effects on an interior built
environment on the residents of a care facility [13])
or hospital [14]). Office interiors are another example of a distant environment and human relationship
[15–17] and also the interiors of ships [18]. The distant relationship of the environment and the human in
the aircraft interior such as walking seems to refresh
Aspect in the Environment to
the human body
Distant
Close
Touching
aircraft passengers [19]. Pressure and temperature
sensors [20, 21] in aircraft seats measure the effects
while touching the human body. Other special edition
papers involve sensors such as the eyes and nose sensing the freshness of the air [22]. The relationship of
the environment, human body, and the three aspects
(touching, close and distant) of the body are apparent in this special issue on environmental design.
Dul et al. [23] described the future of ergonomics,
which should look at performance in addition to wellbeing, health or comfort. This prediction exists in the
papers featured in this issue. Groenesteijn et al. [24],
showed bicycling, instead of sitting while working,
was good for worker well-being and health. Worker
performance improved by 35% and workers had better concentration on their work tasks.
Seating and office interiors are traditionally a wellstudied topic in environmental design and there are
many examples in the proceedings of HFES conferences in the EDTG sessions. Additionally, the inner
climate within environmental design is extensively
studied, i.e., conferences papers from the Environmental Ergonomics Association conferences. For this
special issue the inner climate, studied by Roelofsen
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P. Vink et al. / Modeling the relationship between the environment and human experiences
et al. [22], presented a model suggesting the inclusion
of clothing in the prediction of office air quality.
3. Environmental experiences through time
Time is an important effect influencing the humans.
Bazley et al. [25] demonstrated that in many jobs discomfort is high in the middle of the week and lowest
at the beginning and end of the week. In addition,
during the day the discomfort increases. During sitting, discomfort increases through time. Porter et al.
[26] reported an increase in discomfort during driving road trials of 135 minutes sitting in a car seat.
Smulders et al. [8], indicated that the discomfort
in an airline business class seat increases in time.
The duration of sitting is more important than the
composition of a seat. The results of a sitting duration in a laboratory setting showed discomfort for
both the thin lightweight seat and a traditional airline
seat.
There is more to the effects of the environment
/ human relationship. The human brings individual
perceptions, expectations, and experiences into the
environment. What happens to a person during the
day, week or on a flight and what they expect in the
future or experience in the past plays a large part
in the environment and human interaction. Vink [2]
modeled comfort in time and showed that human
sensors and systems were proficient in recording
differences, but did not do as with slow or small
incremental changes. In a study by Kolarik et al.
[27], 52 subjects were asked to report differences
in temperature whilst in a climate chamber. Subjects
did not distinguish a slow temperature increase of
+0.6◦ Celsius/hour for the first three to four hours of
exposure. However, as the exposure continued, a relationship between thermal sensation and temperature
was observed. Another time aspect was that previous
experience influenced the comfort of the next experience. Indoor climate studies have shown there is not a
singular comfortable indoor temperature. For example, comfortable indoor temperature is dependent on
the outside temperature [28] in the northern hemisphere; higher indoor temperatures are preferred in
the summer than in the winter. The same is true for
recording seat rigidity. Van Veen et al. [29], demonstrated that after sitting on a hard wooden stool, a
different padded seat felt significantly softer than
after sitting in a luxury chair and then sitting in a
different padded seat. Before the test, Van Veen et al.
[29], covered the test seat with a white blanket. The
subjects were instructed to sit on the hard stool and
the luxury chair to become accustomed to the environment. Half of the subjects began with the ‘hard
stool’ conditions and the other half began in the ‘luxury soft chair’ condition. At the same time the next
day the subjects arrived to test the ‘second seat’ and
the condition was changed. The results showed that
for the pre-condition “stool” (the chair feels soft: 1 = I
don’t agree, 9 = I agree) a rating of 6.75 ± 1.94, on a
9-point scale was significantly different than the precondition “luxury chair” with a rating of 4.96 ± 2.46,
therefore, demonstrated that sitting on a hard surface
as a precondition to the test seat made the seat feel
softer.
4. Unawareness of the environment
In the case of the aforementioned seat test, the
subjects were not aware of the difference of the precondition. Usually humans are not aware of their
surrounding environment. Dijksterhuis [30] stated
that in general, humans are often unaware of the
environmental characteristics that cause positive
experiences.
Mellert et al. [31] studied the impact of noise
and vibration on the well-being of people during
long-haul flights and in flight simulators. Apart from
indices to characterize the human response, they
found that noise had an important impact on health
indicators, comfort and well-being. For instance,
flight crew members with swollen feet were more
aware of their feet condition during noisy conditions. The awareness increased 43% under noisy
conditions, compared with quiet conditions at the
beginning of the flight. Similar results were found
for neck pain, with a pronounced pain increase of
57% as noise levels increased. These results showed
that the awareness of the environment was not always
present.
5. The sweetness of discomfort
Perhaps it is neither possible nor wise to make
all elements in the environment generate an optimal comfort feeling. Vink [2] proposed a theory
[2] that making the environmental experience highly
comfortable does not automatically make the whole
experience comfortable. Perhaps phases of discomfort or low comfort should be allowed to stimulate
more awareness of high comfort or low discomfort
levels: “the sweetness of discomfort” (Fig. 3).
P. Vink et al. / Modeling the relationship between the environment and human experiences
769
Fig. 3. Model of the hypothetical curve of how the comfort reduces slowly and then increases steeply, causing humans to become aware of
the comfort.
Of course, the discomfort should not be so high that
the entire journey is a terrible experience. The challenge is to find the ideal balance between comfort and
discomfort experiences for the overall environmental
experience.
6. Comfortable built environment
There is more than the physiological input during
the journey through time in the environment and the
unawareness of the environment. Bazley [32] wrote
that humans experience the built environment on the
physical, emotional, psychological and socio-cultural
level. The comfortable built interior environment
model showed the overlapping space between a built
interior environment and the human. This overlap is
where the comfort elements reside (Fig. 4).
Some prominent characteristics of the built interior environment are temperature, air quality, light,
and sound that influence the “balance” between the
human and interior environment. Human interaction
with built interior expectations and pre-experiences
when accompanied by physical, psychological (intellectual and emotional) and socio-cultural are some
of the influences of perceived comfort or discomfort in the interior. Ideally, the characteristics of
the built environment and the human experience are
“in balance” and contain elements, e.g., being in
control, stimulating human interactions and sensory
variability, indicating the interior environment as a
“comfortable built environment” space. The concept
of time and change, shown in the outer ring, indicate
that interior environments and people change through
time. For example, an interior considered comfortable, e.g., a bedroom, kitchen, during childhood may
or may not be comfortable for an adult. Everything
changes and evolves through the cycles of time.
Built interiors perceived as comfortable have certain
elements that provide comfort through time. Therefore, time is an important factor to consider in the
design process.
7. Future research
The papers in this special issue show new insights
on the effects of the interior environment on people. Lewis et al. [10] demonstrated that people can
be distracted from discomfort caused by the environment, but also showed that the distance between the
human and the environment determines the types of
senses involved. In the Lewis et al. [10], study the
eyes played a more dominant role than the close to
the body pressure sensors.
Studying the effect of the journey in the environment through time is essential as shown in the
theory by Vink [2] and in the model by Bazley
[32]. Hiemstra-van Mastrigt [33] showed the passenger felt more refreshed after walking throughout the
airplane and Van Veen [12] showed that a small movement of the backrest and seat pan reduced discomfort
over time. This special issue also highlights many
remaining questions about the effects and relation-
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P. Vink et al. / Modeling the relationship between the environment and human experiences
Fig. 4. The Comfortable Built Interior Environment Model [32].
ships between environments and human beings and
the need for more studies and research. In particular
the study of long-term effects and the effects of the
combinations of elements which provide comfort or
discomfort need attention. Additionally, the effects
of socio-cultural changes in the environment need
more study. Bazley [32] showed that people were
factors creating the most comfort, but also the most
discomfort in the built interior environment.
Predictions for future control room interior
designed environments envision a human centric
design focusing on comfortable, seamless collaborative workspaces [34–37]. However, this prediction
is not job type, or workplace specific. In the future
robots will likely take over the mundane functions of
human society. The assimilation of artificial intelligence (AI) and robots into all environments is highly
probable. It will be especially interesting if AI and
robots take over the activities that create human
discomfort. This means new research for designing environments for these changes and studying the
effects of these changed environments. The challenge will be to design balanced environments that
address the technological achievements but maintain
the innate comfort of nature. In addition, the definition of task, workplace, and role of the human will
change for humans as systems incorporate, drop ing
automation. Changes in materials, i.e., clothing and
more smart materials will, introduce possibilities for
more research on the effects of these environments
touching the human body. In combination with the
Internet these materials could be personalized, which
would generate new fields of research.
8. Conclusion
Modeling the relationship between environment
and human experiences is possible in space as shown
in Fig. 1. Table 1 shows the focus of each paper in this
special Issue as related to this model. The modeling in
time shown in Figs. 3 and 4 is not applicable to all the
papers, as time was not a component of every study
presented here. Although several studies showed the
experience of an interior environment fluctuated over
time. Time is an important aspect to account for in
the study of the effects of an interior environment on
human beings.
For the future, environmental design is certainly
full of new opportunities and needs new research
in the areas close to and far away from the body
as new materials are introduced and artificial intelligence, robots, new materials and automated systems
are assimilated and incorporated within the environment.
P. Vink et al. / Modeling the relationship between the environment and human experiences
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