How the Built Environment Affects Spatial Behavior, Brain Activity and Aesthetics

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• Professor Hugo Spiers
• Friday 02 May 2025, 16:30-18:00
• Ground Floor Lecture Theatre, Department of Psychology.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Sara Seddon.

The host for this talk is Nicky Clayton

Abstract: The talk will present research from our research team where we have explored how the structure of the environment affects wayfinding behaviour. It will cover our research with Sea Hero Quest in which we found growing up in griddy cities has a negative impact on navigation behaviour, as well as well as research with London taxi drivers how the environment affects how they plan. In the second part I will cover our recent research in neuroarchitecture exploring brain responses (fMRI) during watching movies of pleasant or unpleasant built environment and crowd dynamics in a study of 100 people navigating and exploring a fabricated large-scale art gallery (The 100 Minds in Motion Project).

Bio: Hugo Spiers is Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience, and a Vice Dean for Enterprise, at University College London (UCL). He has over 25 years of research experience in neuroscience and psychology studying how our brain recalls the past, navigates the present and imagines the future. He has published over 100 academic articles and received numerous awards including the Charles Darwin Award from the British Science Association and a James McDonnell Foundation Scholar Award. He is co-director of the International Centre for NeuroArchitecture and NeuroDesign, a Fellow of the Royal Institute of Navigation, a Lighthouse Fellow of the Centre for Conscious Design and the Vice Chair of the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture in the UK. His research project Sea Hero Quest has tested over 4 million people in 195 nations on their navigation ability, providing a powerful benchmark for assessment in Alzheimer’s disease and global insight into cognition.

This talk is part of the Zangwill Club series.

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