ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the science around human face-sensing abilities. To design successfully for people, it is important to have a basic understanding of how they work, and one of the prime things humans do, it turns out, is look for and at other people. This chapter explains that modern research in face-perception is significant for the humanities, particularly architecture and planning, describing how new findings in neuroscience provide a new foundation for the building-disciplines. Cognitive science, revealing our face-bias, can help us understand why people favor certain buildings over others and even why they regularly head to certain streets and city squares and avoid others. The chapter frames the key dimensional parameters that drive our behavior in the built environment based on our ability to see each other and the fact that our sensory input diminishes with distance. Key parameters are: the Social Field of Vision (100 meters), or the maximum distance a person can clearly see another person; Emotional Field of Vision (35 meters), the maximum distance a person can readily read another’s emotional state; and the Personal Field of Vision (7 meters and under), the ideal distance for most easily receiving information about another.
