Holahan, C.J. & P.F. Sorenson, 1985, The role of figural organization in city imageability: an information processing analysis, in: Journal of Environmental Psychology, 5,
- Author : Holahan, C.J. & P.F. Sorenson
- Year : 1985
- Journal/Series : Journal of Environmental Psychology
- Volume Number (CONSECUTIVE: Counting all Volumes of this Journal ever published) : 5
- Pages : 279-286
- Abstract in English : Lynch (1960, 1981 in this database) has been at the forefront of the effort to apply knowledge about environmental cognition to environmental design. Lynch’s works have been required reading at schools of urban design for two decades, and have been highly influential in enhancing the visual awareness of design students and offering a frame of reference for describing the visual aspects of the urban environment, Central to Lynch’s analysis of the images of major American cities was an interest in discovering the relative imageability or legibility of different urban environments. Lynch defined the legibility of an urban environment as the ease with which its features can be recognized and organized in to a clear unified pattern. The purpose of the present study ease to apply experimental methods and theoretical formulations from the information processing metaphor in experimental psychology to explore some of the underlying theoretical premises in Lynch’s conception of imageability. At a general level, the study reflects an integration of practical questions about urban imageability from the urban literature with theoretical notions of organization’s role in the creation and maintenance of ‘analogue memory’ representation from the experimental psychology literature. Specifically, the study attempted to separate and assess the effects of salience and organization of schematic maps’ path networks on the imageability of the maps. Findings support Lynch’s contention that organization is critical to a highly imageable urban environment. At the same time, the results of this study go beyond Lynch by suggesting that identifiable or visual emphasis alone, when unorganized, may detract from rather than aid city legibility.
- Comments/Notes : KEYWORDS: urban design, legibility, imageability, Lynch.