Cassarino Marica, Setti Annalisa
School of Applied Psychology, University College Cork Cork, Ireland.
School of Applied Psychology, University College CorkCork, Ireland; The Irish Longitudinal Study on Aging, Trinity College Dublin, The University of DublinDublin, Ireland.
Front Psychol. 2016 Aug 30;7:1329. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01329. eCollection 2016.
The lived environment is the arena where our cognitive skills, preferences, and attitudes come together to determine our ability to interact with the world. The mechanisms through which lived environments can benefit cognitive health in older age are yet to be fully understood. The existing literature suggests that environments which are perceived as stimulating, usable and aesthetically appealing can improve or facilitate cognitive performance both in young and older age. Importantly, optimal stimulation for cognition seems to depend on experiencing sufficiently stimulating environments while not too challenging. Environmental complexity is an important contributor to determining whether an environment provides such an optimal stimulation. The present paper reviews a selection of studies which have explored complexity in relation to perceptual load, environmental preference and perceived usability to propose a framework which explores direct and indirect environmental influences on cognition, and to understand these influences in relation to aging processes. We identify ways to define complexity at different environmental scales, going from micro low-level perceptual features of scenes, to design qualities of proximal environments (e.g., streets, neighborhoods), to broad geographical areas (i.e., natural vs. urban environments). We propose that studying complexity at these different scales will provide new insight into the design of cognitive-friendly environments.
生活环境是一个舞台，在这个舞台上，我们的认知技能、偏好和态度共同决定我们与世界互动的能力。生活环境有益于老年人认知健康的机制尚未完全被理解。现有文献表明，那些被认为具有刺激性、实用性且美观的环境，无论对于年轻人还是老年人，都能够改善或促进认知表现。重要的是，对认知的最佳刺激似乎取决于体验足够具有刺激性的环境，同时又不会过于具有挑战性。环境复杂性是决定一个环境是否能提供这种最佳刺激的重要因素。本文回顾了一系列研究，这些研究探讨了与感知负荷、环境偏好和感知可用性相关的复杂性，以提出一个框架，该框架探讨环境对认知的直接和间接影响，并结合衰老过程来理解这些影响。我们确定了在不同环境尺度上定义复杂性的方法，从场景的微观低层次感知特征，到近端环境（如街道、社区）的设计品质，再到广阔的地理区域（即自然环境与城市环境）。我们认为，在这些不同尺度上研究复杂性将为认知友好型环境的设计提供新的见解。
