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Abstract
Throughout the history of mankind, people have struggled to understand their environment. The problem is not that straightforward, because the direct means of experiencing contextual phenomena happens through human senses. ”Thus to know our nature we must first know our selves”. This chapter discusses human behavioral responses in order to understand the meaning of perception, cognition, and cognitive map. In addition, understanding human behavior serve as basis for achieving visual identity of urban spaces. Our visual system is the most important sensor in terms of quantity and complexity of environmental information perceived and processed by human being. The visual system is built for the detection of changes in the environment.
Earlier psychological theories assumed that men and animals interacted with their environment mainly to satisfy their primary biological drives, such as hunger. So to satisfy human primary biological drives, people must first perceive their environment. The word perception comes from the Latin, percepio, which means ”receiving, collecting, the action of taking possession, and apprehension with the mind or senses.”
This chapter is going to discuss the perception of the environment, form, space, and their impact on urban spaces. These three points will be illustrated from the different historical views, different theories which discussed each field of perception (environment, form, and space), and the application of each field of perception on the urban spaces.
Since perception is considered the apprehension of the immediate environment and it is also considered the first action of the behavioral layperson response followed by cognition, so the first chapter is going to deal with perception as a process of inquiring, interpreting, and organizing information towards virtual environment. The second chapter is going to deal with cognition and cognitive map .