A review of the Effects of the Physical Components of the Interior Space of Architecture on Emotions with an Emphasis on Neuroarchitecture

Problem statement: 

Mental health has received a lot of attention in recent years from various fields. One of the parameters of mental health is emotion, which has been influenced by various environmental, social, cognitive, and motor factors. Architectural space as one of the important environmental components has an impact on emotion and has neurophysiological effects on the human brain. Since humans spend a lot of time in the interior of architecture, it has doubled in importance. Despite the great importance of this issue, little research has been done in architecture so far, and most of the research has used qualitative methods of interview, observation, and questionnaire, which, due to the influence of the author, there has been a possibility of orientation in the results. Nevertheless, with the advancement of technology and the emergence of the field of neuroscience, new quantitative tools and methods have been provided to researchers to measure emotion, and it has led to the formation of a new paradigm of neuroarchitecture.

The present research aims to review the studies conducted in this field so that in addition to clarifying the effect of interior architecture on emotion, the methodology of the studies is also analyzed and provides a clear path for future researchers. Therefore, the present research questions can be expressed as follows: Which physical components of the interior space of architecture affect emotion? What effect has their exposure had on neurophysiological emotion? And how do these emotions appear?

The present research employed the systematic review methodology. In this regard, the inclusion criteria such as terms, measurement variables, measuring instruments, and publication date were defined. The way of searching databases of studies, selecting and assessing their qualities were defined, and the final studies were introduced and analyzed.

The results indicate the effect of the physical parameters of the interior space such as form, materials and texture, furniture, ceiling height, architectural details, and openness to nature on emotion, each of which is one of the emotional states and feelings such as enjoy, pleasure, arousal, and disgust have appeared. The present research is a window to the issue of mental health, which introduces a field for using the interior space of architecture as a type of treatment or prevention.