VISUAL ATTENTION IN THE EVALUATION OF ARCHITECTURAL SPACES

Analysis of visual behaviour before a given stimulus is a tool for studying an observer's most immediate, instinctive response. Recent access to technology able to locate and record the path the eye takes when observing a stimulus has led to growing interest in how we observe our environment. Studies which have simultaneously measured an observer's subjective response and visual journey make it possible to establish a relationship between the way the image is observed and the observer's visual attention to the image. This present paper describes an experimental study which applies this new technique for visual analysis to the observation of images used in recent architecture competitions. These measurement tools for measuring physiological responses can make a significant contribution to observer analysis.