Analysis of Iranian Scientific Productions in Neuro-Architecture: A Scoping Review

Understanding the new opportunities and challenges in architecture and urban planning requires a holistic view of the scientific productions of this field. Evaluating scientific productions in neuro-architecture, which is one of the emerging interdisciplinary topics, has not been done so far. Accomplishing review research can help to achieve the mentioned ideal. The purpose of this study is to evaluate Iranian scientific productions in the neuro-architecture field based on a literature review.

The type of study is applied research based on scoping review, and descriptive analysis carried out with content analysis method and scientometrics approach. The research was performed by reviewing articles by Iranian researchers from 2003 to 2020. The search was completed in the 12th month of 2020 in scientific sources. The selection of articles was based on the PRISMA model, and finally, 27 articles were selected from among 480 studies, including 16 articles in the Persian language and 11 articles in the English language. In data analysis, descriptive and content analysis methods were used. Excel and UCINET software were used as tools.

The initial impression is that the number of articles in the neuro-architecture field has increased considerably from 2003 to 2020. The first study in neuro-architecture was published in 2012. The most considerable number of articles is 15, published in 2020. The evaluations showed that 37% of articles were written with quantitative research methods, 37% with qualitative research methods, and 26% with mixed research methods. "Iran University of Science and Technology", and "Shahid Rajaee teacher training University" have the most article production in neuro-architecture. The journals: "Soffeh" and "Urban Management" with 6 papers had the most remarkable number of articles in this field. Studies show that articles’ content can be categorized into four groups: "Aesthetic and Visual preference, Environmental Health and Well-being, Wayfinding and Navigation, and Phenomenology and Sensual perception". The topic of "Environmental Health and Well-being" with 10 articles has the most significant numbers and the topic of "Wayfinding and Navigation" with 5 articles has the fewest ones. Drawing the co-occurrence keywords network showed that 5 keywords with at least 3 repetitions had the highest number of repetitions among the keywords. These keywords included: "Aesthetical preference, Electroencephalography (EEG), Sensory perception, Facade design, and Cognitive features". Among buildings, façades with 29%, and educational and cultural buildings with 4% have the highest and the lowest amount of study, respectively. "Questionnaires and interviews" were the most crucial research tools with 29%, and "Sketch" was the least frequent tool in extracting data from articles with 3%.

The investigation of the findings shows that the research about neuro-architecture has been introduced in Iran with a decade delay compared to the rest of the world. One of the substantial reasons for this time gap is the lack of scientific and, laboratory equipment related to neurological research in Iran, which has been provided in recent years with the establishment of the National Brain Mapping Laboratory and similar research centers. As mentioned, the topic of "Environmental health and Well-being" has the most extensive number of articles in the scientific productions of neuro-architecture in Iran. It seems that the World Health Organization's emphasis on mental and environmental health in 2016 affected the increase in the number of studies in this field. The three keywords "Color and Light, Aesthetic preferences, and Façade design" have the most co-occurrence with each other and other keywords. Based on this, most of the studies performed in the field of aesthetics have examined the effect of color and lighting on viewer preference, which is often evaluated on the façade. In general, the approach to Iranian scientific productions has changed from a descriptive approach to an experimental approach, and brain mapping studies are expected to increase in the future.