PERCEPTIONS OF INTERIOR SPACES

A transactional approach was used to examine responses to dining and living rooms. In experiment 1, 19 subjects evaluated a sample of 37 rooms on nine scales and ranked ordered the scales as to difficulty of application. A factor analysis yielded three room categories: Decorative; Stylish; and Familiar. Subjects found it easier to make affective rather than cognitive judgments. Experiment 2 examined the effects of relative involvement on responses to the three categories of rooms. Stimulus materials included two matched sets (A and B) of 12 rooms (four from each category) and a detail from each (e.g. a lamp). Twenty-four male and 24 female subjects viewed the 12 rooms (set A or set B) and rated each one on six 7-point scales, wrote brief imaginative accounts of an episode which might take place in each room, and performed a recognition task for details of the rooms. Subjects did the scale ratings either before or after writing the narrative accounts, and wrote each narrative either from first or third person perspectives in a within-subjects design. The desire to live in a room was best predicted by perceived beauty and personal involvement. Involvement was fostered by rating the rooms before writing the stories and by a first person perspective. Familiar rooms were preferred most, while Decorative rooms were seen as most informative about the person.