This book reveals the social basis for public space use, design and management.

Eight years ago, four psychologists with varying backgrounds but a common in- terest in the impact of environmental stress on behavior and health met to plan a study of the effects of aircraft noise on children. The impetus for the study was an article in the Los Angeles Times about architectural interventions that were planned for several noise-impacted schools under the air corridor of Los Angeles Interna- tional Airport. These interventions created an opportunity to study the same chil- dren during noise exposure and then later after the exposure had been attenuated. The study was designed...

This volume is intended to provide an overview and scholarly analysis of state-of-the-art developments within the field of environmental simulation research. Environmental simulation involves the presentation of scale- model previews, full-scale mock-ups, and computer images of planned environments and activities taking place within them to designers and to prospective users of those settings. Environmental simulations are under- taken for many purposes, including (1) the training of environmental de- sign students and professionals, (2) the assessment of people's environ- mental preferences,...

The inception of this volume can be traced to a series of Environmental Psychology Colloquia presented at the University of California, Irvine, dur ing the spring of 1974. These colloquia were held in conjunction with Social Ecology 252, a graduate seminar on Man and the Environment. Although the eight colloquia covered a wide range of topics and exemplified a diversity of research techniques, they seemed to converge on some common theoretical and methodological assumptions about the na ture of environment-behavioral research. The apparent continuities among these colloquia suggested the...