Expert Interviews

These experts from The Salk Institute of Biological Studies discuss the science behind experiences, and how we can start evaluating experimental design by neuroscience. The conversations ranged from fields of the Psychophysical and Phenomenology to discussing that there is no secret sauce to creating an experience.

“People sometimes ask me … you’re interested in this relationship between neuroscience and architecture.  Can you give me a prescription for how to build - based on what you know about the frame - for how to build a better building?  And we can’t do that.  At least not now.”  - Tom Albright

“How does an architect create a space that elicits a certain emotional response and … how can neuroscience inform that?  I don’t have an answer.” - Tom Albright
 

“One that I think has been neglected is the social component. Buildings are normally occupied by people and we do things together collaboratively in buildings.  And I think this is increasingly the way our world will operate .” - Tom Albright

“This is a really hot topic in neuroscience now, the neurobiology of social interactions.” - Tom Albright

“I’m a sensory biologist so a lot of things I can try to understand about the sensory experience, but the emotional component to it, this spirit of place element, is a much harder problem.” - Tom Albright

“Much of your experience, most of the time, is driven by memory.  Or, my sensory experiences are noisy, they’re incomplete, they’re ambiguous, and I fill in the blanks based on what I know to be true about the world.” - Tom Albright

“I just launched The Center at the University of Southern California in the school of cinematic arts, where we will be asking the same questions.  How to measure it. What has to be measured. What is experience.” - Sergei Gepshtein

“There are two disciplines concerned with connections between the physical world and the role of experience and they are called psychophysics and experimental phenomenology. Psychophysics comes from the physical end, phenomenology comes from the mental side the experimental side and they’re both very important.” - Sergei Gepshtein

“Descartes as one of the founding fathers of western science, in his hands, space would have no parts. It’s like a boundless container. Space of experience, on the other hand, has structure.” - Sergei Gepshtein

Experience Card

The culmination of our research led us to create cards that included our four attributes that assess a person's experience. Early in the process, we found that a place might have multiple, different, and unique experiences specific to the individual and a card is needed for each experience. To download the Experience Card, please click here. 

Overview of Experience Card

Our diagram represents the whole picture of experience design.  The whole is divided into four attributes we have identified. The areas of the quadrants can be scaled based on their impact on the experience.  For example, if the social component of an experience is very high, the greater the area of that quadrant will be. The interior measure is divided into 10 rings so the experiential attribute can be rated on a 1-10 scale.  The exterior circle is the memory component. We encourage you to fill out the memory line a day or two after you leave the experience.

Case Studies

The below case studies are a collection of our experiences over the past two months. This collection is intended to assist an individual in assessing an experiential design.

Miscellaneous Tidbits

Throughout this process, we explored endless content by casting a wide net to ensure we were looking into every possibility. This lead to many long nights, and rabbit holes of information. Below is a small collection of our ‘random’ findings.