ABSTRACT
Esthetically sensitive individuals together with city planners, art educators, and related workers have long been intuitively aware of the effects of esthetic surroundings. This chapter argues that three groups of college undergraduates to evaluate the degree of energy and well-being displayed in photographs of human faces. Architects have long been interested in studies that investigated the effects on behavior of relatively simple properties of the perceived environment as color, light levels, the presence or absence of daylight, and the like, because of their obvious implications for design. However, the design tradition is also concerned with the effects stemming from the esthetic properties of buildings. A test of visual-esthetic environment should emphasize spontaneity and informality or else task orientation or test anxiety may reduce the effects. Despite the considerable discussion among designers, design critics, and philosophers of esthetics about the effects of "beautiful" environments on people, there has been very little empirical research into the question.
