Territorial Cognition, Behavior, and Space of Residents: A Comparative Study of Territoriality between Open and Gated Housing Blocks; a Case Study of Changchun, China

Abstract

Residents have territorial cognition with different hierarchies and conduct corresponding behaviors in the outdoor space of housing blocks through sharing space and facilities. This mechanism stems from human need and might be influenced by physical environmental elements. To understand this effect, especially after a guideline for transforming existing gated housing blocks was enacted in China, this study compared the territoriality of open and gated housing blocks from the view of the cognition, behavior, and space through combined methods. Interview, snapshot, and observation were conducted to capture the situation of these three dimensions, then they were evaluated and grouped by factor analysis and quartiles. Obtained results in the open housing block were found to be inferior to that in the gated case. The conclusion was drawn based on the above that there are remarkable differences between open and gated housing blocks on the intensity of residents’ territorial cognition, the level and quantity of their territorial behaviors, and the distribution as well as continuity of the territorial space.

The concept of in-between space in Batak Toba vernacular architecture: a content analysis study

“…Newman also classified territorial space into four levels which are private, semi-private, semipublic, and public (Huang, Mori, and Nomura 2019). The in between space was observed to be formed between public and private areas due to its manifestation as a definitive space used in transiting (Vegas et al 2014) while the semiprivate or semi-public space serves as an inbetween space.…”

Induction of territorial behavior and dominance hierarchies in laboratory mice

“…Such territorial behaviors have been best described in animal populations in the wild, but isolated aspects of social aggression and defense can be elicited in the laboratory and neuroscientists have elaborated a rudimentary understanding of the neuroanatomy and pharmacology of these behaviors. However, while much speculation has been aimed at drawing links between territorial behaviors in animals and various types of social aggression, violence, and associated mental states and disorders in humans, we still know too little about the neurobiological basis of these behaviors to draw mechanistic parallels [3][4][5][6][7][8][9] . One impediment to the neuroscientific study of territorial behaviors derives from the difficulty in applying the invasive neural recording and manipulation techniques necessary to understand behaviors at the circuit level to populations of animals in the wild or semi-natural environments required to elicit the full repertoire and dynamics of territorial aggression, defense, and dominance behaviors.…”