Imageability
Imageability is a measure of how easily a physical object, word or environment will evoke a clear mental image in the mind of any person observing it.[1][2]
History and components
Kevin A. Lynch first introduced the term in the context of urban planning in his 1968 book, The Image of the City.[3] In it, Lynch argues cities contain a key set of physical elements that people use to understand the environment, orient themselves inside of it and assign it meaning.[4]
The five key elements the imageability of a city are Paths, Edges, Districts, Nodes, and Landmarks.
- Paths: streets, sidewalks, trails, canals, railroads, and other channels in which people travel.
- Edges: walls, buildings, and shorelines, curbstone, streets and overpasses that form boundaries around a space.
- Districts: medium to large area that people can enter into and out of and have a common set of identifiable characteristics.
- Nodes: large areas you can enter, serve as the foci of the city, neighborhood, district, etc.
- Landmarks: memorable points of reference people person cannot enter into. Examples include buildings, signs, stores, mountains, public art.[1]
See also
Further reading
- Holahan, Charles J.; Sorenson, Paul F. (1985-09-01). "The role of figural organization in city imageability: An information processing analysis". Journal of Environmental Psychology.
- Smolík Filip (2019-05-21). "Imageability and Neighborhood Density Facilitate the Age of Word Acquisition in Czech". Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research.
- Paivio, Allan; Yuille, John C.; Madigan, Stephen A. (1968). "Concreteness, imagery, and meaningfulness values for 925 nouns". Journal of Experimental Psychology.
- Hansen, Pernille; Holm, Elisabeth; Lind, Marianne; Simonsen, Hanne Gram (2012). "Name relatedness and imageability".
- Richardson, John T. E. (1975-05). "Concreteness and Imageability". Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology.
- Silva, Kapila Dharmasena (2015). "Developing Alternative Methods for Urban Imageability Research".[5]
- McCunn, Lindsay J.; Gifford, Robert (2018-04-01). "Spatial navigation and place imageability in sense of place". Cities. [6]
References
- ^ a b Lynch, Kevin, 1918-1984. (1960). The image of the city. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-12004-6. OCLC 230082.
{{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - ^ Dellantonio, Sara; Job, Remo; Mulatti, Claudio (2014-04-03). "Imageability: now you see it again (albeit in a different form)". Frontiers in Psychology. 5. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00279. ISSN 1664-1078. PMC 3982064. PMID 24765083.
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link) - ^ "Analyzing Lynch's City Imageability in the Digital Age". Planetizen - Urban Planning News, Jobs, and Education. Retrieved 2020-02-15.
- ^ The urban design reader. Larice, Michael, 1962-, Macdonald, Elizabeth, 1959- (Second edition ed.). London. ISBN 978-0-203-09423-5. OCLC 1139281591.
{{cite book}}:|edition=has extra text (help)CS1 maint: others (link) - ^ Silva, Kapila Dharmasena (2015). "Developing Alternative Methods for Urban Imageability Research".
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help) - ^ McCunn, Lindsay J.; Gifford, Robert (2018-04-01). "Spatial navigation and place imageability in sense of place". Cities. 74: 208–218. doi:10.1016/j.cities.2017.12.006. ISSN 0264-2751.