The Lundbeck Foundation Investigator Network is a community of early to mid-career and talented investigators in Denmark dedicated to exploring the vast field of neuroscience on several levels. The network brings together a diverse group of researchers from various disciplines, all united in their passion for understanding the complexity of the brain and its functions. From molecular and cellular neuroscience to cognitive and systems neuroscience, our members are committed to advancing our understanding of the brain and its disorders through cutting-edge research and collaboration. Read more about the LFIN and how to become a member here. Also, watch our new […]
Tvedebrink, T. D. O. et al. (2022) ‘Motion and Emotion: Understanding Urban Architecture through Diverse Multisensorial Engagements’, The Journal of Somaesthetics, 8(2). Open access to full paper: https://journals.aau.dk/index.php/JOS/article/view/7404 Abstract Understanding how (dis)abled human bodies interact with the built environment is critical in Urban Design. We examine if somaesthetic theory combined with a neuro-architectural framework can help advance our understanding of human bodily interaction with the built environment. We do so first from a theoretical point of view, and second with an analysis of the situated context: Budolfi Square in Aalborg, Denmark. Our take-home-message is that architects and urban designers need […]
Bogotá, J. D., & Djebbara, Z. (2023). Time-consciousness in computational phenomenology: a temporal analysis of active inference. Neuroscience of Consciousness, 9(1), 1–12. https://doi.org/doi.org/10.1093/nc/niad004 Open access to full paper: https://academic.oup.com/nc/article/2023/1/niad004/7079899 Abstract Time plays a significant role in science and everyday life. Despite being experienced as a continuous flow, computational models of consciousness are typically restricted to a sequential temporal structure. This difference poses a serious challenge for computational phenomenology—a novel field combining phenomenology and computational modelling. By analysing the temporal structure of the active inference framework, we show that an integrated continuity of time can be achieved by merging Husserlian temporality […]
8:30: Dr. Elisabetta Canepa (MS.Eng., Ph.D.) – The Elusiveness of Assessing the Atmospheric Essence of Architecture by Body and Emotions. She will suggest new empirical evidence for how architects can understand what atmosphere does and how it primes experiences. Elisabetta is an architect and researcher from Genoa, Italy. She is currently an EU Marie Curie Fellow running the RESONANCES project (2021–2024) in collaboration with the University of Genoa, KStateU, and Aalborg University. Her research focuses on the hybrid connection between architecture and cognitive neuroscience, analyzing topics such as atmospheric dynamics, the emotional nature of the architectural experience, embodiment theory, the empathic […]
Can we use today’s and future empirical means to raise our understanding of the phenomenological effect of sacred spaces and structures, particularly as they relate to spirituality and faith? The work and thought of late neuroscientist Francisco Varela loom large here, but much has occurred since his passing, and a whole new world in neuroscience is unfolding. A selected number of individuals from a variety of disciplines whose works and thoughts have been significantly advancing this new area of scholarship and research will be participating in the Symposium. Such broad interdisciplinarity will allow us to view and interrogate the intersection […]
Djebbara, Z., Fich, L. B. and Vecchiato, G. (2022) ‘Making Sense of Space: The neuroaesthetics of architecture’, in Skov, M. and Nadal, M. (eds) The Routledge International Handbook of Neuroaesthetics. 1st ed. London: Routledge. Link to our new book chapter right here! Always open to questions and critique; zadj@create.aau.dk Abstract In this chapter, we provide a review of the state-of-the-art neuroaesthetics of the built environment. Assuming varying levels of neuroscientific knowledge with the readers, we commence with a brief introduction to the two main methods in neuroaesthetics, namely electroencephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). To ensure an in-depth […]
Djebbara, Z. (2022) Affordances in Everyday Life: A Multidisciplinary Collection of Essays. 1st ed. Edited by Z. Djebbara. London: Springer International Publishing. It’s my pleasure to announce the publication of this book, which has been in the making for 1.5 years. Link to full book right here! Happy readings! About the book The concept of affordances is being increasingly used in fields beyond ecological psychology to reveal previously unexplored interdisciplinary relationships. These fields include engineering, robotics, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, urban theory, architecture, computer science, and much more. As the concept is adapted for its relational meaning between an agent and […]
Djebbara, Z., Jelic, A. and Fich, L. B. (2022) ‘Tying architecture and homeostasis using affordances: An approach to well-being in the built environment’, in Structures and Architecture. A Viable Urban Perspective?: Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Structures and Architecture (ICSA 2022), July 6-8, 2022, Aalborg, Denmark. CRC Press, p. 353. Link to the proceedings right here! Abstract In framing human well-being in the built environment as the support of the emotional, mental and physical health of the users, an approach that addresses that particular interface is principal. For the built environment to support well-being, this human-centered approach must […]
Djebbara, Z. et al. (2022) ‘Neuroscience and Architecture: Modulating behavior through sensorimotor responses to the built environment’, Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, p. 104715. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2022.104715. Open access, right here. Abstract As we move through the world, natural and built environments implicitly guide behavior by appealing to certain sensory and motor dynamics. This process can be motivated by automatic attention to environmental features that resonate with specific sensorimotor responses. This review aims at providing a psychobiological framework describing how environmental features can lead to automated sensorimotor responses through defined neurophysiological mechanisms underlying attention. Through the use of automated processes in subsets […]
Wang, S., Sanches de Oliveira, G., Djebbara, Z. and Gramann, K. (2022) ‘The Embodiment of Architectural Experience: A Methodological Perspective on Neuro-Architecture’, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. Available at: https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnhum.2022.833528. Read the full paper here. People spend a large portion of their time inside built environments. Research in neuro-architecture—the neural basis of human perception of and interaction with the surrounding architecture—promises to advance our understanding of the cognitive processes underlying this common human experience and also to inspire evidence-based architectural design principles. This article examines the current state of the field and offers a path for moving closer to fulfilling this […]
Djebbara, Z. and Gramann, K. (2022) ‘Architectural affordances: linking action, perception, and cognition’, in Brain, Beauty, and Art: Essays Bringing Neuroaesthetics into Focus. Oxford University Press. Request the full paper here, and remember to buy the treat of a book Brain, Beauty, and Art: Essays bringing neuroaesthetics into focus. Imagine not being in space – impossible! The environment is experienced effortlessly, simply through our being in a place. It requires no more than simple perceptions to assemble a stable world. Yet, architecture – the art of designing the built environment – can tell awe-inspiring stories beyond describing stable buildings. It […]
Vecchiato, G., Robinson, S., Djebbara, Z., Papale, P. & Presti, P. (2021) ‘8th International Conference on Spatial Cognition: Cognition and Action in a Plurality of Spaces’. Rome/Virtual Conference. Full proceedings can also be found here. Outline. Architecture influences actions and emotions being the main stage of our everyday social interactions. This symposium will guide the auditory through selected neuroscientific knowledge and philosophy scholars to explain how architectural features impact on low and high level brain mechanisms, ultimately shaping human cognition. Recent research on how we experience architecture has highlighted that built spaces affect us much deeper at bodily and mental […]
Vartanian, O., Walther, D. B., Djebbara, Z., & Gosling, S. (2021) ‘Scene and Place Preferences: Insights from Psychology and Neuroscience’, in XXVI Congress of the International Association of Empirical Aesthetics 2021. London/Virtual Conference. Full proceedings also found here. Outline. Our aesthetic responses to objects extend to natural scenes and indoor places. Interestingly, people exhibit greater variability in their aesthetic responses to human artifacts such as interior architecture than they do to natural phenomena such as landscapes. This suggests that the behavioral relevance of natural scenes triggers fairly consistent information processing across individuals, whereas architectural interiors reflect aesthetic sensibilities that reflect […]
I’m delighted to announce that I’ve been awarded Spar Nord Foundation’s Research Prize this year, 2021, for my PhD thesis. I need to thank a lot of people for their efforts and unwavering support. My thesis, Expecting Space: an enactive and active inference approach to transitions, is a philosophical, psychological and cognitive neuroscientific approach to the experience and impact of architectural transitions. Central to the thesis is the ecological concept ‘affordance’, that I take as a relational measure between body, brain, and environment. The research results show that we are practically minded with the body in the center. By measuring […]
As the kind of living organisms we are, we are in many ways dependent on our ability to act in space to thrive and survive. Thus, our brain is constantly preoccupied with predicting our possibilities to act spatially and adjust both body and brain accordingly. As we mostly live in manmade environments, this ongoing adjustment means that certain aspects of the design of spaces might have a direct influence on the state of the body and the brain. Zakaria Djebbara is an architect from Aalborg University who defended his Ph.D. in 2020 in the cross-section of architecture, neuroscience, and philosophy. […]
A conversation with Dr. Maria da Piedade Ferreira, founder of Corporeal Architecture and Lecturer at Hochschule für Technik Stuttgart – HFT and ACE – Center for Education of the Academy for Neuroscience for Architecture. This the second of a cycle, as joint initiative from the YouTube channel Corporeal Architecture. The conversation focused on the role of affordances in the built environment. Starting from sensory capacities to experience, it is discussed how discovered architectural affordances might shape our expectations and thus experience.
Djebbara, Z., Fich, L. B. and Gramann, K. (2021) ‘The brain dynamics of architectural affordances during transition’, Scientific Reports, 11(1), p. 2796. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-82504-w. Read the full paper here. Action is a medium of collecting sensory information about the environment, which in turn is shaped by architectural affordances. Affordances characterize the fit between the physical structure of the body and capacities for movement and interaction with the environment, thus relying on sensorimotor processes associated with exploring the surroundings. Central to sensorimotor brain dynamics, the attentional mechanisms directing the gating function of sensory signals share neuronal resources with motor-related processes necessary […]
August, K., Djebbara, Z., Kousoulas, S., & Radman, A. (2020) ‘The Architecture of the Virtual: An Encounter between Cognitive Neurosciences and Architecture’, in 4th Ambiances Congress 2020, Ambiances, Alloaesthesia: Senses, Inventions, Worlds. Santa Barbara: Ambiances. Full text also found here. Outline. The philosophies of substance presuppose a subject which then encounters a datum. This subject then reacts to the datum. The process ontology presupposes a datum (firstness) which is met with feelings (secondness), and progressively attains the unity of a subject (thirdness). It is in this sense that our bodily experience is primarily an experience of the dependence of the […]
Djebbara, Z., Parr, T. and Friston, K. (2020) ‘Anticipation in architectural experience: a computational neurophenomenology for architecture?’ Available at: http://arxiv.org/abs/2011.03852 The perceptual experience of architecture is enacted by the sensory and motor system. When we act, we change the perceived environment according to a set of expectations that depend on our body and the built environment. The continuous process of collecting sensory information is thus based on bodily affordances. Affordances characterize the fit between the physical structure of the body and capacities for movement in the built environment. Since little has been done regarding the role of architectural design in […]
Djebbara, Z., Fich, L. B. and Gramann, K. (2020) ‘Architectural Affordance Impacts Human Sensorimotor Brain Dynamics’, bioRxiv. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, p. 2020.10.18.344267. doi: 10.1101/2020.10.18.344267. Action is a medium of collecting sensory information about the environment, which in turn is shaped by architectural affordances. Affordances characterize the fit between the physical structure of the body and capacities for movement and interaction with the environment, thus relying on sensorimotor processes associated with exploring the surroundings. Central to sensorimotor brain dynamics, the attentional mechanisms directing the gating function of sensory signals share neuronal resources with motor-related processes necessary to inferring the external […]
Djebbara, Z., Fich, L. B. and Gramann, K. (2020) ‘Architectural affordance systematically alter parieto-occipital alpha-band desynchronization’, in ANFA 2020: Sensing spaces, perceiving place. San Diego, US: ANFA. Stay tuned for the full-paper with improvements! Transitions are among the most fundamental architectural elements, as they distinguish between inside and outside (1). Over millennials, architectural transitions have been shaped by human beings in various forms, making them both architecturally and biologically attractive. Because transitions extend in time and space and depend on the human body’s capabilities to propel itself through space, we used a Mobile Brain/Body Imaging approach (MoBI; 2–4) with high-density […]
Jelić, A., Djebbara, Z., Fich, L., and Tvedebrink, T. (2020) ‘Placing “process” in the spotlight: Architectural education as a testing ground for cognitive science- design translation’, in ANFA 2020: Sensing spaces, perceiving place. San Diego, US: ANFA. As the field of neuro- and cognitive science for architecture advances, the question of how research produced can be implemented in architectural design education is ever more pertinent. Two key translational challenges can be identified. On the one hand, due to the necessarily perspectival nature of all scientific knowledge [1], the conversion of research results into design principles and guidelines results in a […]
I am pleased to announce that our project that took place in Berlin Mobile Brain/Body Imaging Lab (BeMoBIL) was awarded by Brain Products. More can be read about it here.
Djebbara, Z. (2020). Expecting space: an enactive and active inference approach to transitions. Aalborg Universitetsforlag. Ph.d.-serien for Det Tekniske Fakultet for IT og Design, Aalborg Universitet The following thesis is an interdisciplinary investigation of architectural transitions cast as a composite of space and experience in time. Dispersed between philosophy, architecture and cognitive neuroscience, the thesis also attempts to provide an empirically plausible neuroscientific framework that best explains the human experience of architectural transitions. Accordingly, the thesis is neither a pure study of space nor of the human, but instead, an investigation of the dynamics that emerge between the body and space during […]
Djebbara, Z., Brorson Fich, L., Petrini, L., & Gramann, K. (2019). Sensorimotor brain dynamics reflect architectural affordances. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 116(29), 14769-14778. Anticipating meaningful actions in the environment is an essential function of the brain. Such predictive mechanisms originate from the motor system and allow for inferring actions from environmental affordances, and the potential to act within a specific environment. Using architecture, we provide a unique perspective on the ongoing debate in cognitive neuroscience and philosophy on whether cognition depends on movement or is decoupled from our physical structure. To investigate cognitive processes […]
Djebbara, Z., Brorson Fich, L., & Gramann, K. (2019). Understanding Perceptual Experience of Art Using Mobile Brain/Body Imaging. I A. Nijholt (red.), Brain Art: Brain-Computer Interfaces for Artistic Expression (s. 265-282). [9] Springer. This chapter draws on the importance of movement for human perceptualexperience and how it influences brain dynamics. By use of Mobile Brain/Body Imaging (MoBI), artists with interest in the experience of art can get insights into human cortical activity during artworks. Specifically, art that depends on action faces challenges regarding the exploration of human brain activity during their artistic acts or performances. We give an account of how architectural experience, […]
Fich, L. B., Gimmler, A., Petrini, L., Jelic, A., Djebbara, A. Z., & Jönsson, P. (2018). Does views to nature and the design of spaces matter? A pain stress experiment. I Academy of neuroscience for Architecture: Shared Behavioral Outcomes (s. 68-69). Previously, we have shown that the design of spaces can influence the physiological stress reaction to psychosocial stress in terms of the stress hormone cortisol [1]. In the current experiment, we examined the physiological reaction to a pain stressor (the Cold Pressor Test). We used three different computer models in a virtual environment (a Cave): a closed room, a room with openings […]
Djebbara, A. Z., Fich, L. B., Petrini, L., & Gramann, K. (2018). Incentive architecture: Investigating spatial affordances in architecture using MoBI and VR. I Conference Proceedings of the 3rd International Mobile Brain/Body Imaging Conference (s. 106-107) Background Sequences of spaces are known to architects to have a certain impact on the perception and affective evaluation of spaces (1). Transitions themselves can be defined in time by the juncture between two spaces, and spatially as a delineating threshold between them, generally revealing a possibility for passing the threshold. Here, we investigated transitions using openings as delineating threshold, to gain a deeper understanding of the […]
Djebbara, A. Z., Fich, L. B., Petrini, L., & Gramann, K. (2018). Incentive Architecture: Neural Correlates of Spatial Affordances During Transition in Architectural Settings. I Academy of Neuroscience For Architecture: Shared Behavioral Outcome (s. 52-53). Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture. Transitions from one space to another are defined by two spaces and a delineating threshold between them. The threshold itself can manifest in different architectural forms and has impact on the perception and affective evaluation of the connected spaces (Moretti, Bucci, Mulazzani, & DeConciliis, 2002). Changing spatial proportions in sequences is an architectural illusion exploited since the Egyptians (ca. 2010 BCE). Prior […]
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