The Role of the Senses in Children’s Perception of Space

Abstract

While we humans exist in space through our bodies, we experience it via all our senses and build up an integrated knowledge of the world in our memories. However, children’s conception of the world differs from adults due to their developmental stages. This study aims to examine human-space interaction with a new approach to reveal the effects of sensory stimuli on children's perception and memory of space. The case study was conducted in a theme park that offers various sensory stimuli with particularly designed spaces and activities. For the behavioral data, the spatial preferences of the participants (33 children, age 10) were recorded during the tour, and for the memory data participants were asked to draw pictures (cognitive maps) afterwards. The datasets were redefined by the main sensory stimuli offered by the spatial units (spatial data), and the number of stimulus experiences and the number of stimulus recalls were analyzed comparatively. Contrary to popular belief, the results show that (1) all of the senses take part in perception depending on the existing stimuli in the space, vision does not have any precedence; (2) the functioning of the senses during an experience changes depending on how much stimulus they are exposed to and how much the body participates in the perception process; (3) kinesthetic stimuli come to the fore as the best stored stimuli in memory, whereas the taste stimuli remain in the background as the least remembered ones. The case study group was limited, the subjective aspects of perception, and the age and gender differences that may exist are ignored. With the inclusion of age and gender factors precisely, this methodology could reveal promising alternatives for design methods and guide the production of all types of architectural spaces, including the children's spaces. This study proposes an original perspective that regards both the physical and social components of the space as the source of perception; and it attempts to make up for a deficiency by regarding the children who are mostly neglected in other studies, yet are active users of the space.