UCL ‘art gallery’ experiment aims to inform better design of spaces

Over 100 volunteers were tracked walking through a custom-built network of moveable ‘walls’ at UCL’s PEARL (Person Environment Activity Research Laboratory) facility in East London. Measuring 15m², the space was set up to resemble an art gallery, with participants instructed to move between rooms and perform different tasks, including an evacuation.

Volunteers wore caps containing a tracking device and a barcode to enable camera tracking, with some participants also wearing mobile electroencephalography (EEG) systems to measure brain activity. It’s hoped the research, set to be continued in a series of further experiments at PEARL, will produce valuable insights for designing spaces such as transport hubs, hospitals, or offices.

“To study how people navigate their environments and how their brains support this, we can do that in a research lab – but that’s not very realistic – or we can do that in the real world – but that’s harder to control or modify,” said research lead Professor Hugo Spiers, from UCL’s Department of Experimental Psychology.