We shape our environments and they shape us - but how? On the influence of color temperature on approach-avoidance responses

Human behavior in space is highly affected by the physical environment. While preferences for environmental characteristics and related decisions, such as approach and avoidance, have been well studied, real-time effects of ambient stimuli on pedestrian behavior have been widely unexplored. When better understanding the effects of ambient stimuli, design could be used to enhance individuals´ internal responses (i.e. affective, cognitive, and physiological responses) towards mobility infrastructures and to intentionally influence external responses (e.g. movement behavior) to optimize pedestrian flow. In this research, we study how pedestrian walking behavior in indoor environments is influenced by visual and acoustic stimuli. In particular, these stimuli are designed and tested in real-world case scenarios of different contexts and complexities. In these environments, pedestrian responses towards the stimuli are empirically studied with a multi-method approach: for collecting human movement characteristics such as walking speed and spacing, unobtrusive sensor technologies from computer vision are applied. These measurements are complemented by affective and cognitive responses from the pedestrians examined after being exposed to the visual and acoustic stimuli. Correlations of stimuli-organism-responses are analyzed. The findings are further discussed in terms of their implications in the field of urban design, mobility infrastructures, and microscopic simulation models.