Department of Architecture, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 1PX, UK.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2023 Feb 3;20(3):2735. doi: 10.3390/ijerph20032735.
Virtual architecture has been increasingly relied on to evaluate the health impacts of physical architecture. In this health research, exposure to virtual architecture has been used as a proxy for exposure to physical architecture. Despite the growing body of research on the health implications of physical architecture, there is a paucity of research examining the long-term health impacts of prolonged exposure to virtual architecture. In response, this paper considers: what can proxy studies, which use virtual architecture to assess the physiological response to physical architecture, tell us about the impact of extended exposure to virtual architecture on human health? The paper goes on to suggest that the applicability of these findings to virtual architecture may be limited by certain confounding variables when virtual architecture is experienced for a prolonged period of time. This paper explores the potential impact of two of these confounding variables: multisensory integration and gravitational perception. This paper advises that these confounding variables are unique to extended virtual architecture exposure and may not be captured by proxy studies that aim to capture the impact of physical architecture on human health through acute exposure to virtual architecture. While proxy studies may be suitable for measuring some aspects of the impact of both physical and virtual architecture on human health, this paper argues that they may be insufficient to fully capture the unintended consequences of extended exposure to virtual architecture on human health. Therefore, in the face of the increasing use of virtual architectural environments, the author calls for the establishment of a subfield of neuroarchitectural health research that empirically examines the physiological impacts of extended exposure to virtual architecture in its own right.
虚拟建筑越来越多地被用来评估物理建筑对健康的影响。在这项健康研究中，暴露于虚拟建筑被用作暴露于物理建筑的替代物。尽管越来越多的研究关注物理建筑对健康的影响，但很少有研究检查长时间暴露于虚拟建筑对健康的长期影响。有鉴于此，本文探讨了以下问题：使用虚拟建筑来评估对物理建筑的生理反应的代理研究，可以告诉我们长时间暴露于虚拟建筑对人类健康的影响是什么？本文接着提出，当长时间体验虚拟建筑时，这些发现对虚拟建筑的适用性可能受到某些混杂变量的限制。本文探讨了其中两个混杂变量：多感觉整合和重力感知。本文建议，这些混杂变量是长时间虚拟建筑暴露所特有的，可能无法通过旨在通过急性暴露于虚拟建筑来捕捉物理建筑对人类健康影响的代理研究来捕捉。虽然代理研究可能适合测量物理和虚拟建筑对人类健康影响的某些方面，但本文认为，它们可能不足以完全捕捉长时间暴露于虚拟建筑对人类健康的意外后果。因此，面对虚拟建筑环境的日益普及，作者呼吁建立神经建筑健康研究的子领域，从实证的角度检验长时间暴露于虚拟建筑本身对生理的影响。
