Geo-EEG: Towards the Use of EEG in the Study of Urban Behaviour

Abstract

In this paper, we present how mobile electroencephalography, or mobile EEG, is becoming a relevant tool of urban studies, including among others, spatial cognition, architecture, urban design and planning. Mobile EEG is a research methodology that requires tightly controlled experiments and complicated analytical tools, but it is increasingly used beyond the clinical and research context to monitor brain function and cognition in real world. It is used to unravel our understanding of the neural processes that enable spatial perception and cognition, while is also applied to the study of psychological transactions between people and the environment, for example to gauge the effects of urban or natural environments on the emotional state of pedestrians. In the near future, mobile EEG could be integrated in the research on cities as a tool to understand the cognitive foundations of urban movement, assess the psychological impact of environments on individuals, or target interventions to improve the quality of the urban environment. In this paper we review relevant research with mobile EEG, as well as the background and methodological issues arising in such projects.

Understanding Visual Engagement with Urban Street Edges along Non-Pedestrianised and Pedestrianised Streets Using Mobile Eye-Tracking

“…The current study shows that pedestrians visually engaged more with street edge ground floors than upper floors along both non-pedestrianised and pedestrianised streets. This insight supports previous work describing the experiential significance of ground floors [19,20], especially the concepts of Gehl [1] and his city at eye-level and Glaser et al's [2] street plinths. It is also notable that the current study findings correspond well with Glaser et al's claim that ground floors determine 90% of peoples' experience of buildings that flank streets.…”

“…This is due to their being heightened potential for them to be cognitively processing aspects of their wider surroundings or something they have previously engaged with (21). Future research could take this into consideration by attempting to link mobile eye-tracking with wider data collection methods, such as mobile electroencephalogram (EEG) (19,20). This has the potential to provide more robust insight through establishing a stronger link between gaze distribution and cognitive processing.…”

“…Over many years, an understanding of what visual qualities and attributes of environmental scenes people engage with and value has been attained, often with a focus towards influencing design decision-making [15][16][17][18]. Alongside this, new data collection methods have provided a greater opportunity to capture insight into how these environments are engaged with by people while they are immersed within them [19][20][21]. However, even though advancements have been made, the application of new techniques to the systematic assessment of how pedestrians visually engage with urban street edges remains limited.…”

Understanding Minds in Real-World Environments: Toward a Mobile Cognition Approach

“…Interest in mobile cognition can be found across a number of different fields in neuroscience—the relevance of real-world cognition has been highlighted for sport (Park et al, 2015; Cheron et al, 2016), ergonomics (Mehta and Parasuraman, 2013), dual-task paradigms (De Sanctis et al, 2014), spatial cognition (Mavros et al, 2016) and mental imagery (Kranczioch et al, 2014). Increasing numbers of studies are investigating cognitive processes during full-body motion in the real-world.…”

The impact of walking in different urban environments on brain activity in older people

“…Mobile EEG is an emerging tool that may lead to further understanding of the effect of real-world environments on neural activity (Mavros et al 2016). There have been numerous studies that have used the Emotiv (www.emotiv.com) headset in health and well-being research (Milosevic et al 2013, Choo and May 2014, Menshawy et al 2015, Neale et al 2017 and have validated its appropriateness in both laboratory and outdoor settings (Debener et al 2012, Badcock et al 2013, although some research casts doubt over its appropriateness for clinical measurements or critical medical applications (Duvinage et al 2013).…”