- Email: [email protected]
Environmental psychology in Japan
Journal of Environmental Psychology (1982) 2, 313-321
ENVIRONMENTAL
PSYCHOLOGY
IN JAPAN
MASAO INUI
Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan Abstract
The article briefly summarizes the development of environmental psychology in Japan, and discusses its characteristic areas of research and their relation to contemporary Japanese environmental conditions. The more important studies are reviewed as well as the general methodological orientation of Japanese environmental psychology. Introduction
It is difficult to say when and with whom Japanese environmental psychology originated. As early as the late 1940s papers concerned with the visual perception of form, colour preferences and the effects of perspectives were being presented at the annual conferences of the Architectural Institute of Japan. By the 1950s interest was becoming more practically oriented and human engineering topics and problems of colour in the environment were appearing; in the 1960s attention was paid to the direct impact of architectural space upon human beings. From the present-day perspective all of this is clearly environmental psychology, but that specific claim was not made for any of them at the time of publication. The first three books of direct relevance to the field appeared in the 1960s (Kobayashi, 1961; Akiyama, 1967; Oyama and Inui, 1969). The last of these, under the title Psychology for Architects, brought together 10 articles taken from journals from 1966 on and was made possible by the existence of a core of knowledge and interest then designated as architectural psychology. One outcome of David Canter's stay in Tokyo was the publication of a book entitled What is Environmental Psychology? (Canter and Inui, 1972): this consists of 10 papers translated into Japanese and originating from Britain and the U.S.A., together with a review by David Canter of environmental psychology in Japan and the West. From this time on the title 'environmental psychology' became general and subsequent books have borne it in one form or another (Iritani, 1974; Souma and Sako, 1976; Mochizuki and Oyama, 1979; Yoshida, 1981; Inui et al., 1982). The change from 'architectural' to 'environmental' psychology is not merely a nominal one, but marks a change in emphasis, since these books treat environment in a more general sense by dealing with cities and landscape as well as architecture. The most frequent forum for presentation of this type of work has been the annual meeting of the Architectural Institute of Japan, and the number of such presentations has steadily increased, from a maximum of about 5/year in the 1950s, to 10-20/year in the 1960s and 50/year in the 1970s. In the 1980s the numbers are still continuing to rise. While the individual contributions are themselves very short, their increasing number does parallel architects' increasing interest in environmental psychology, notably in relation to human attitudes towards and requirements of 0272~,944/82/040313 + 09 $03.00/0
~) 1982 AcademicPress Inc. (London) Ltd
314
M. lnui
buildings and, on a larger scale, cities. This interest may well reflect the realization that the environment could no longer fully satisfy human needs as population density and levels of pollution rose. Reports of relevant research have also been published in the organs of the Japanese Psychological Association, the Japanese Association of Applied Psychology, the Japanese Society for Social Psychology, the Japanese Society for the Science of Design, and the Japanese Ergonomics Research Society. All of these have held symposia and meetings relevant to this field and a committee of the Architectural Institute of Japan has specifically concerned itself with environmental psychology. In 1980 a joint Japanese-American seminar was held in Tokyo under the title 'Interaction Processes between Human Behavior and Environment' (Hagino and Ittelson, 1980). The Japanese delegates to this seminar have taken the initiative in founding a new learned society, the Man-Environment Research Association (MERA).
Topic Areas
Since the boundaries of environmental psychology are not clear and a large number of organizations may be involved to some degree in it, it is not at the moment possible to chart the exact quantitative growth of the field. The total number of published papers may easily reach 1500. There are no fewer than 20 books (see references) and more than 10 translations of works originally in English (Lynch, 1968; Sommer, 1972; Proshansky et al., 1974-1976; Downs and Stea, 1976; Ittelson et al., 1977; Canter, 1979; Mercer, 1979; Canter, 1982), at least four special journal issues (Industrial Products Research Institute, 1973; Society of the Japanese Psychological Review, 1973; The Architectural Institute of Japan, 1976; Center for Environmental Information Science, 1981), and one publication by a learned society (Japanese Society for Social Psychology, 1973). There is of course a relationship between the volume of work and physical environmental conditions in Japan. While it would be a digression to give an exhaustive description of the Japanese environment it is probably useful to provide a very brief summary of what appear to be the distinguishing characteristics of Japanese society: (1) Japan is historically a monoracial society with social relationship structures which are in many ways different from those of the West (for example in the importance of blood ties and loyalty to companies); (2) traditions based in the distant past coexist with recent introductions from the West (e.g. tatami mats and chairs); (3) an 'economy first' policy encourages materialistic motivations (a process which is occurring all over the world but particularly so in Japan); (4) all major cities are overpopulated, despite crude statistics which indicate, because they ignore the mountainous nature of much of the country, a nearaverage population density; (5) the climate of Japan is quite different from those of the West, with its well-defined cycle of four seasons including a hot, humid summer. Japan also is subject to unusual natural hazards: typhoons, volcanoes and earthquakes.
Environmental Psychology in Japan
315
The examples of Japanese research given below are selected to represent major activities and space allows only their distinguishing features to be discussed. The visual environment The visual environment has received a considerable amount of attention in Japan, and early interest centred on problems related to lighting. Numbers of psychological studies were carried out to establish illumination standards for interiors (Indow and Kawai, 1965) and for road tunnels (Kabayama, 1963). The broad area of human requirements for lighting and the visual environment has also been discussed at a global level (The Illuminating Engineering Institute of Japan, 1966; Inui, 1978). Kuroda (1965) has investigated the subjective effects of architectural perspectives and photographic slides and coloured models have been used to investigate colours used in buildings (Inui, 1969). The introduction of American ideas of 'colour conditioning' in Japan has led to the recognition of the importance of the second of these problems, and the approach has been modified to suit the special conditions and traditions of Japan (Inui, 1976). Attention has also been devoted to the texture of building materials (Kitaura, 1978 and 1979; Ohno, 1980). Townscape (the visual appearance of towns and cities) is also being studied. It is already clear that an excess of advertising signboards has reduced the visibility of road signs (Araki et al., 1982), and had reduced the attractiveness of cities (Ashihara, 1979). It also appears (Shimizu, 1979a) that the worst feature of the central zone of a city appears to have a dominant role in creating the citizen's mental image of his city. Landscape As early as 1935 Watsuji had developed a philosophical theory of the relationships between people and the climate in which they lived, but this field has only received empirical attention recently. It is clear from a variety of studies (Higuchi, 1975; Nakamura, 1980) that mountains and rivers are dominant in the Japanese image of their homeland, and that mountainous scenery has directly affected the Japanese outlook on nature. Nakamura (1982) has made a comparison of Japanese and Western attitudes towards nature. Studies of the influence of weather on human performance (Kamiyama, 1964) and other aspects of behaviour (Imai, 1973) have also been carried out. Space It is important to rake a historical perspective in considering Japanese spatial behaviour. Eight hundred years ago a celebrated Japanese poet lived alone in a simple wooden hut only ten feet square and expounded the great virtues of his simple dwelling, ever since when these ideas have been a basic underlying concept in the structure of Japanese attitudes to space in housing (Takahashi, 1980). These ideas may, however, be regaining their controversial value. A room with a tatami (mat) floor serves a variety of purposes from eating to sleeping (Takuma, 1980) in a way which is quite different from anything in
316
M. Inui
Western culture. In a tatami room people can sit anywhere they wish, and the whole range of formality to total informality in conversation is possible (Mochizuki, 1976). The Western approach to the provision of space for tables and chairs is not easily applicable to the Japanese home. A great deal of work has been concerned with the evaluation of the quantitative aspects of space, for example spaciousness (Inui and Miyata, 1973), the feeling of oppressiveness (Takei and Ohara, 1977), and visually closed spaces (Uchida, 1979). This degree of attention is, of course, related to the scarcity and consequent value of space in Japan. It is clear that the Japanese preference for good vision in and out of a building is rather different from the Western desire for enclosure. A particularly interesting piece of work in this area has been reported by Takei (1969) and suggests that the density of buildings in a city is best evaluated in terms of the percentage of the projection of the sky which people can see from ground level (the sky factor).
Ergonomics
Japanese research in environmental ergonomics has concentrated on the phenomena of crowding and the elaboration of man-environment systems approaches. Crowding is a particularly well-researched field in Japan and developments have included mathematical models o f the speed of crowd-flow, based on naturalistic observation of congested conditions (Togawa, 1969). Crowding in Japan is of a different order entirely from that in the West and there have been several disasters resulting directly from crowding: for example, 16 people were killed by crowding on the Imperial Palace Plaza in 1954. In the man-environment systems area specific relationships between space and behaviour have been validly simulated by computer (Naka, 1977 and 1978; Watanabe, 1980). A number of books have been compiled from reports of specific investigations and studies (Human Engineering Handbook Committee, 1966; Yoshida, 1969; Okada, 1970).
Building use
Yoshitake (1964) proposed in the late 1940s a method of investigating human behaviour in buildings. He studied behaviour by careful observation and produced theories which aimed to optimize parameters of, for example, rooms and furniture. For instance, the number of lavatories required in a school were determined from observation of the frequency of use. Yoshitake's students, as well as a number of other architects, have frequently used this type of technique to aid design decisionmaking (Yoshitake, 1970-1977). As well as studying the behaviour of building users, investigators have also occupied themselves with their wants and desires in direct studies of user requirements of buildings and other environments. Yoshida (1973) explored the differences between aspiration levels and actual working conditions among the employees of a variety of companies in Tokyo. Yamamoto (1980) showed that the effect of high population density of city-dwellers is not necessarily adverse, a finding which may have some relation to the relatively low crime rate in Japanese cities.
Environmental Psychology in Japan
317
Public nuisances and disasters
A variety of studies have concerned such areas of public nuisance as traffic noise (Izumi, 1978 and 1979; Kimura et al., 1980); vibration in tall buildings (Goto, 1975); the wind effects caused by high-rise buildings (Murakami et al., 1980), and the obstruction of sunshine by other buildings (Ogisso, 1972). Attempts have also been made to predict the behaviour of people in fires (Kobayashi and Horiuchi, 1979) and earthquakes (Abe, 1980).
The General Features of Japanese Environmental Psychology Research
Consideration of the numbers of relevant papers and articles published by the various professional bodies shows that architects are doing most of the research in this area. This bears some relation to the much greater growth of schools of architecture and building technology than of schools of psychology in the Japanese universities, which is itself related to the universities' response to rapid economic growth. In addition the schools of architecture are in engineering colleges and faculties, which is a different practice from that in, for instance, the U.S.A. These characteristics have resulted in there being a large number of architects who carry out both research and design activities. The statistics for 1972 show that the Architectural Institute of Japan and the Japanese Society for the Science of Design record 59 investigations, whereas the Japanese Psychological Association only record 10 relevant publications (Hagino, 1980). A multiple volume series in architecture now contains one of the most extensive of current books on environmental psychology (Inui et al., 1982). The content of the research carried out by architects does, however, raise some problems. A great deal of the work described relates to surveys and experiments which are extremely context-specific and have not received any further theoretical consideration. Thus, there is a sense in which, although they use psychological techniques and are related to the environment, these studies cannot be regarded as primary examples of environmental psychology. It must be remarked that it has taken a very long time to form a relevant learned society. Academic sectionalism is common throughout the world but is perhaps more marked than usual in Japan. The contemporary segmentation of academic societies has in fact made the activities of researchers in this broad and interdisciplinary field more difficult than it would otherwise have been. It is only in the last few years that there have been professors of architecture active in this field who have been appropriately recognized. The newly established society for the field (MERA) has only about 50 members at present but it is expected that it will serve as a channel for the dissemination of information to those, particularly foreign research workers, who wish to learn about the activities of its members. The problem of language should also be mentioned, since most researchers in this field, and more particularly psychologists, have frequently referred to Englishlanguage literature and indeed some translations of anglophone texts have appeared in Japanese. However, few Japanese are as familiar with, for example, French or German, and therefore the ability of Japanese academics to refer to those sources is restricted. In the reverse direction, very little information flows from Japanese into English
318
M. Inui
and very little Japanese work has found its way into English or American journals. At international conferences the Japanese contribution has once again apparently been small: to the author's knowledge only two Japanese contributions have been made to E D R A (Seguchi, 1978; Ohno, 1980); Two to the 1979 International Conference on Environmental Psychology (Nakamura and Kitamura, 1979; Shimizu, 1979b); and five to the 1982 IAPS conference at Barcelona (Inui, 1982; Kitaura, 1982; Matsumoto and Taniguchi, 1982; Mimura, 1982; Shimizu, 1982). By comparison with the number of Japanese contributions to other scientific societies this appears to be quite small. Academic sectionalism has evidently made some contribution to this problem. Conclusions
Environmental psychology in Japan has experienced a quite rapid growth to a considerable level of activity. While there is no reason to see it as inferior in quality to the environmental psychology of the West, it has concerned itself with some environmental problems which are specific to Japan and in so doing has made a direct approach to the solution of practical problems and therefore to the development of the built environment. Its major shortcoming is perhaps a shortage of theoretical elaboration and there is a real need for the introduction of more psychological thinking into the field. Interdisciplinary work has been hampered by academic sectionalism but it is hoped and expected that the new society (MERA) will make progress in breaking down this resistance to the proper development of the field as a whole. The problem still remains, however, that most Japanese work is unknown in the West and has therefore made little contribution to the development of the subdiscipline in total. It is therefore clear that we should encourage the export of Japanese research to the rest of the world, and that in particular the exchange of scholars and researchers between Japan and the West should also be promoted. References
Unless otherwise stated, the literature is written in Japanese, i.e. each title is the translation.
Abe, K. (1980). (in English). Panic potential as a predictor of human behaviors in case of disasters in metropolitan area. In G. Hagino and W. H. Ittelson (eds), pp. 47-55. Akiyama, T. (1967). Design and Psychology. Tokyo: Kajima Institute Publishing. Araki, M. et al., (1982). An empirical investigation of sign-recognition in various environmental contexts. Transactions of the Architectural Institute of Japan, No. 312, pp. 92-9; etc. The Architectural Institute of Japan (ed.) (1976). Vision and visual environment (special issue). Journal of Architecture and Building Science, 91, No. 1114. Ashihara, Y. (1979). Asthetics of the Street. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten Publishers. Canter, D. and Inui, M. (eds) (1972). What is Environmental Psychology? Tokyo: Shokokusha Publishing. Canter, D. (1979). Psychology for Architects. Translated by T. Miyata and S. Uchida. Tokyo: Shokokusha Publishing. Canter, D. (1982). The Psychology of Place. Translated by T. Miyata and S. Uchida. Tokyo: Shokokusha Publishing. Center for Environmental Information Science (ed.) (1981). Environment, and sensation, perception and cognition (special issue). Environmental Information Science, 10, No. 3. Downs, R. M. and Stea, D. (eds) (1976). Image and Environment--Cognitive Mapping and
Environmental Psychology in Japan
319
Spatial Behavior. Translated by Y. Yoshitake et al. Tokyo: Kajima Institute Publishing. Goto, T. (1975). Criteria for motion in tall buildings. Transactions of the Architectural Institute of Japan, No. 237, pp. 109-19. Hagino, G. (1980). (in English). Opening address--Trends in studies of environmental psychology in Japan. In G. Hagino and W. H. Ittelson (eds), pp. 1-14. Hagino, G. and Ittelson, W. H. (eds) (1980). (in English). Interaction Processes between Human Behavior and Environment. Proceedings of the Japan-United States Seminar. Higuchi, T. (1975). The Visual and the Spatial Structure of Landscape. Tokyo: Gihodo Publishing. Human Engineering Handbook Committee (ed.) (1966). Human Engineering Handbook. Tokyo: Kanehara. The Illuminating Engineering Institute of Japan (ed.) (1966). Theory for Better Seeing. Imai, S. (1973). Natural environment and human behavior. Japanese Psychological Review, 16, 231-44. Indow, T. and Kawai, S. (1965). Psychological study of optimal levels of illumination. Journal of the Illuminating Engineering Institute of Japan, 49, 52-63. The Industrial Products Research Institute (ed.) (1973). Psychological approach to design (special issue). Industrial Art News, 41, No. 1. Inui, M. (1969). (in English). Colour in the interior environment. Lighting Research and Technology, 1, 86-94. Inui, M. and Miyata, T. (1973). (in English). Spaciousness in interiors. Lighting Research and Technology, 5, 103-11. Inui, M. (1976). Colour Design and Architecture. Tokyo: Kajima Institute of Publishing. Inui, M. (1978). Lighting and the Visual Environment. Tokyo: Riko Tosho. Inui, M. (1982). (in English). Cross-cultural differences in perception of the visual environment, presented at IAPS in Barcelona. Inui, M., Osada, Y., Watanabe, H. and Akiyama, T. (1982). Environmental Psychology. Tokyo: Shokokusha Publishing. Iritani, T. (1974). An Introduction to Environmental Psychology. Tokyo: Japan Broadcast Publishing. Ittelson, W. H. et al. (1977). An Introduction to Environmental Psychology. Translated by M. Mochizuki and T. Utsuki. Tokyo: Shokokusha Publishing. Izumi, K. (1978-79). A study on the evaluation of the noisiness of sounds. Transactions of the Architectural Institute of Japan, No. 274, pp. 85-92 and No. 279, pp. 107-15. The Japanese Society of Social Psychology (ed.) (1973). Social psychology of environment. The Japanese Annals of Social Psychology, vol. 14. Kabayama, H. (1963). Study on adaptive illumination for sudden change of brightness. Journal of the Illuminating Engineering Institute of Japan, 47, 488-96. Kamiyama, K. (1964). Weather and Man. Tokyo: Kinokuniya Book Store. Kimura, S., So, M. and Inoue, K. (1980). Influence and evaluation of aircraft noise on life environment. Transaetions of the Architectural Institute of Japan, No. 287, pp. 89-98. Kitaura, K. (1978 79). Visual perception of the surface roughness in architectural materials and its quantification. Transactions of the Architectural Institute of Japan, No. 263, pp. 81-9 and No. 275, pp. 75-85. Kitaura, K. (1982). (in English). The playing space of children in high-rise apartments, presented at IAPS in Barcelona. Kobayashi, M. and Horiuchi, S. (1979). Analysis of occupant behavior in an office building under fire. Transactions of the Architectural Institute of Japan, No. 280, pp. 137-42 and No. 284, pp. 119-25. Kobayashi, S. (1961). An Introduction to Architectural Psychology. Tokyo: Shokokusha Publishing. Kohara, J. (1972). Wood Culture. Tokyo: Kajima Institute Publishing. Kuroda, M. (1965). Perspective--its history, Scienee and Art. Tokyo: Bijutsu Shuppansha. Lynch, K. (1968). The Image of the City. Translated by K. Tange and R. Tomita. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten Publishers. Matsumoto, N. and Taniguchi, H. (1982). (in English). An estimation of the visual effects of apartment blocks in housing estates, presented at IAPS Barcelona.
320
M. Inui
Mercer, C. (1979). Living in Cities, Psychology and the Urban Environment. Translated by Y. Nagata. Tokyo: Shinyosha. Mochizuki, M. (1976). In the Personal Space. Tokyo: Buren Shuppan. Mochizuki, M. and Oyama, T. (eds) (1979). Environmental Psychology. Tokyo: Asakura Publishing. Murakami, S. et al. (1980). Wind effect on pedestrians, new criteria based on observation of 2000 persons. Transactions of the Architectural Institute of Japan, No. 287, pp. 99-109. Naka, Y. (1977-78). Simulation model of complicated passenger flow. Transactions of the Architectural Institute of Japan, No. 258, pp. 93-102 and No. 267, pp. 103 12. Nakamura, Y. and Kitamura, S. (1979). The analysis of associative structure of image map, presented at ICEP in Surrey. (Full paper in English is obtainable from the author). Nakamura, Y. (1980) (in English). Landscape perception and man's esthetic intervention to environment. In G. Hagino and W. H. Ittelson (eds), pp. 139-52. Nakamura, Y. (1982). An Introduction to the Learning of Scenery. Tokyo: Chuokoron-sha. Ogisso, S. (1972). Sunlight in a city. Tokyo: Corona Publishing. Ohno, R. (1980). (in English). Visual perception on texture, development of a scale of the perceived surface roughness of building materials. In R. R. Stough and A. Wandersman (eds), Proceedings of the 1lth Annual Conference of EDRA, pp. 193 200. Okada, M. (1970). The Size of Establishment. In Y. Yoshitake (ed.), Vol. 12. Oyama, T. and Inui, M. (eds) (1969). Psychology for Architects. Tokyo: Shokokusha Publishing. Proshansky, H. M., Ittelson, W. H. and Rivlin, L. G. (eds) Environmental Psychology--Man and his Physical Setting. Vol. 1-6. Translated by T. Akiyama et al. Tokyo: Seishin Shobo Publishers. Seguchi, T. (1978). Studying the concepts of relationship in design and rearranging techniques, presented at the 9th Annual Conference of EDRA. (Full paper in English is available from the author). Shimizu, H. (1979a). The Structure of City Image. Tokyo: Gihodo Publishing. Shimizu, H. (1979b). The Structure of image in central districts, Tokyo, presented at ICEP in Surrey. (Full paper in English is obtainable from the author). Shimizu, H. (1982). (in English). The structure of images--cognitive and evaluative---in central districts of Tokyo, presented at lAPS in Barcelona. The Society of the Japanese Psychological Review (ed.) (1973). Behavior and environment (special issue). Japanese Psychological Review, 16, No. 4. Sommer, R. (1972). Personal Space, The Behavioral Basis of Design. Translated by T. Akiyama. Tokyo: Kajima Institute PUblishing. Souma, I. and Sako, Y. (1976). Environmental Psychology. Tokyo: Fukumura Shuppan. Takahashi, T. (1980). (in English). Notes on the concept of space in the Japanese house. In G. Hagino and W. H. Ittelson (eds), pp. 153-62. Takei, M. (1969). Studies of the method of measuring and judging the density of buildings. Transactions of the Architectural Institute of Japan, No. 162, pp. 43-52 and No. 163, pp. 51-61. Takei, M. and Ohara, M. (1977). A study on measurement of the sense of oppression from a building. Transactions of the Architectural Institute of Japan, No. 261, pp. 105-14; etc. Takuma, T. (1980). Home Environment. In M. Yoshida (ed.), pp. 171-99. Togawa, K. (1969). The behavior of a crowd. In T. Oyama and M. Inui (eds), pp. 171-81. Uchida, S. (1979). An experimental study on the sense of visually-closed spaces. Transactions of the Architectural Institute of Japan, No. 282, pp. 113-22 and No. 285, pp. 117-25. Watanabe, H. (1980). Automaton model in architectural planning. Transactions of the Arc,.itectural Institute of Japan, No. 234, pp. 125-9. Watsuji, T. (1935). Climate--a Philosophical Study. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten Publishers. (The English translation was available but is now out of print.) Yamamoto, K. (1980). The influence of the high density of populations. In M. Yoshida (ed.), pp. 201 45. Yoshida, M. (1969). Industrial Psychology. Tokyo: Baifukan. Yoshida, M. (1973). Realities and aspirations of housing environment among the metropolitan salary-man. Japanese Psychological Review, 16, 259-76.
Environmental Psychology in Japan
321
Yoshida, M. (ed.) (1980). Psychology in City Environment and Home. Tokyo: Shok0kusha Publishing. Yoshitake, Y. (1964). Studies in Architectural Planning. Tokyo: Kajima Institute Publishing. Yoshitake, Y. (ed.) (1970--77). Architectural Planning, Vol. 1-12. Tokyo: Maruzen.
ENVIRONMENTAL
PSYCHOLOGY
IN JAPAN
MASAO INUI
Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan Abstract
The article briefly summarizes the development of environmental psychology in Japan, and discusses its characteristic areas of research and their relation to contemporary Japanese environmental conditions. The more important studies are reviewed as well as the general methodological orientation of Japanese environmental psychology. Introduction
It is difficult to say when and with whom Japanese environmental psychology originated. As early as the late 1940s papers concerned with the visual perception of form, colour preferences and the effects of perspectives were being presented at the annual conferences of the Architectural Institute of Japan. By the 1950s interest was becoming more practically oriented and human engineering topics and problems of colour in the environment were appearing; in the 1960s attention was paid to the direct impact of architectural space upon human beings. From the present-day perspective all of this is clearly environmental psychology, but that specific claim was not made for any of them at the time of publication. The first three books of direct relevance to the field appeared in the 1960s (Kobayashi, 1961; Akiyama, 1967; Oyama and Inui, 1969). The last of these, under the title Psychology for Architects, brought together 10 articles taken from journals from 1966 on and was made possible by the existence of a core of knowledge and interest then designated as architectural psychology. One outcome of David Canter's stay in Tokyo was the publication of a book entitled What is Environmental Psychology? (Canter and Inui, 1972): this consists of 10 papers translated into Japanese and originating from Britain and the U.S.A., together with a review by David Canter of environmental psychology in Japan and the West. From this time on the title 'environmental psychology' became general and subsequent books have borne it in one form or another (Iritani, 1974; Souma and Sako, 1976; Mochizuki and Oyama, 1979; Yoshida, 1981; Inui et al., 1982). The change from 'architectural' to 'environmental' psychology is not merely a nominal one, but marks a change in emphasis, since these books treat environment in a more general sense by dealing with cities and landscape as well as architecture. The most frequent forum for presentation of this type of work has been the annual meeting of the Architectural Institute of Japan, and the number of such presentations has steadily increased, from a maximum of about 5/year in the 1950s, to 10-20/year in the 1960s and 50/year in the 1970s. In the 1980s the numbers are still continuing to rise. While the individual contributions are themselves very short, their increasing number does parallel architects' increasing interest in environmental psychology, notably in relation to human attitudes towards and requirements of 0272~,944/82/040313 + 09 $03.00/0
~) 1982 AcademicPress Inc. (London) Ltd
314
M. lnui
buildings and, on a larger scale, cities. This interest may well reflect the realization that the environment could no longer fully satisfy human needs as population density and levels of pollution rose. Reports of relevant research have also been published in the organs of the Japanese Psychological Association, the Japanese Association of Applied Psychology, the Japanese Society for Social Psychology, the Japanese Society for the Science of Design, and the Japanese Ergonomics Research Society. All of these have held symposia and meetings relevant to this field and a committee of the Architectural Institute of Japan has specifically concerned itself with environmental psychology. In 1980 a joint Japanese-American seminar was held in Tokyo under the title 'Interaction Processes between Human Behavior and Environment' (Hagino and Ittelson, 1980). The Japanese delegates to this seminar have taken the initiative in founding a new learned society, the Man-Environment Research Association (MERA).
Topic Areas
Since the boundaries of environmental psychology are not clear and a large number of organizations may be involved to some degree in it, it is not at the moment possible to chart the exact quantitative growth of the field. The total number of published papers may easily reach 1500. There are no fewer than 20 books (see references) and more than 10 translations of works originally in English (Lynch, 1968; Sommer, 1972; Proshansky et al., 1974-1976; Downs and Stea, 1976; Ittelson et al., 1977; Canter, 1979; Mercer, 1979; Canter, 1982), at least four special journal issues (Industrial Products Research Institute, 1973; Society of the Japanese Psychological Review, 1973; The Architectural Institute of Japan, 1976; Center for Environmental Information Science, 1981), and one publication by a learned society (Japanese Society for Social Psychology, 1973). There is of course a relationship between the volume of work and physical environmental conditions in Japan. While it would be a digression to give an exhaustive description of the Japanese environment it is probably useful to provide a very brief summary of what appear to be the distinguishing characteristics of Japanese society: (1) Japan is historically a monoracial society with social relationship structures which are in many ways different from those of the West (for example in the importance of blood ties and loyalty to companies); (2) traditions based in the distant past coexist with recent introductions from the West (e.g. tatami mats and chairs); (3) an 'economy first' policy encourages materialistic motivations (a process which is occurring all over the world but particularly so in Japan); (4) all major cities are overpopulated, despite crude statistics which indicate, because they ignore the mountainous nature of much of the country, a nearaverage population density; (5) the climate of Japan is quite different from those of the West, with its well-defined cycle of four seasons including a hot, humid summer. Japan also is subject to unusual natural hazards: typhoons, volcanoes and earthquakes.
Environmental Psychology in Japan
315
The examples of Japanese research given below are selected to represent major activities and space allows only their distinguishing features to be discussed. The visual environment The visual environment has received a considerable amount of attention in Japan, and early interest centred on problems related to lighting. Numbers of psychological studies were carried out to establish illumination standards for interiors (Indow and Kawai, 1965) and for road tunnels (Kabayama, 1963). The broad area of human requirements for lighting and the visual environment has also been discussed at a global level (The Illuminating Engineering Institute of Japan, 1966; Inui, 1978). Kuroda (1965) has investigated the subjective effects of architectural perspectives and photographic slides and coloured models have been used to investigate colours used in buildings (Inui, 1969). The introduction of American ideas of 'colour conditioning' in Japan has led to the recognition of the importance of the second of these problems, and the approach has been modified to suit the special conditions and traditions of Japan (Inui, 1976). Attention has also been devoted to the texture of building materials (Kitaura, 1978 and 1979; Ohno, 1980). Townscape (the visual appearance of towns and cities) is also being studied. It is already clear that an excess of advertising signboards has reduced the visibility of road signs (Araki et al., 1982), and had reduced the attractiveness of cities (Ashihara, 1979). It also appears (Shimizu, 1979a) that the worst feature of the central zone of a city appears to have a dominant role in creating the citizen's mental image of his city. Landscape As early as 1935 Watsuji had developed a philosophical theory of the relationships between people and the climate in which they lived, but this field has only received empirical attention recently. It is clear from a variety of studies (Higuchi, 1975; Nakamura, 1980) that mountains and rivers are dominant in the Japanese image of their homeland, and that mountainous scenery has directly affected the Japanese outlook on nature. Nakamura (1982) has made a comparison of Japanese and Western attitudes towards nature. Studies of the influence of weather on human performance (Kamiyama, 1964) and other aspects of behaviour (Imai, 1973) have also been carried out. Space It is important to rake a historical perspective in considering Japanese spatial behaviour. Eight hundred years ago a celebrated Japanese poet lived alone in a simple wooden hut only ten feet square and expounded the great virtues of his simple dwelling, ever since when these ideas have been a basic underlying concept in the structure of Japanese attitudes to space in housing (Takahashi, 1980). These ideas may, however, be regaining their controversial value. A room with a tatami (mat) floor serves a variety of purposes from eating to sleeping (Takuma, 1980) in a way which is quite different from anything in
316
M. Inui
Western culture. In a tatami room people can sit anywhere they wish, and the whole range of formality to total informality in conversation is possible (Mochizuki, 1976). The Western approach to the provision of space for tables and chairs is not easily applicable to the Japanese home. A great deal of work has been concerned with the evaluation of the quantitative aspects of space, for example spaciousness (Inui and Miyata, 1973), the feeling of oppressiveness (Takei and Ohara, 1977), and visually closed spaces (Uchida, 1979). This degree of attention is, of course, related to the scarcity and consequent value of space in Japan. It is clear that the Japanese preference for good vision in and out of a building is rather different from the Western desire for enclosure. A particularly interesting piece of work in this area has been reported by Takei (1969) and suggests that the density of buildings in a city is best evaluated in terms of the percentage of the projection of the sky which people can see from ground level (the sky factor).
Ergonomics
Japanese research in environmental ergonomics has concentrated on the phenomena of crowding and the elaboration of man-environment systems approaches. Crowding is a particularly well-researched field in Japan and developments have included mathematical models o f the speed of crowd-flow, based on naturalistic observation of congested conditions (Togawa, 1969). Crowding in Japan is of a different order entirely from that in the West and there have been several disasters resulting directly from crowding: for example, 16 people were killed by crowding on the Imperial Palace Plaza in 1954. In the man-environment systems area specific relationships between space and behaviour have been validly simulated by computer (Naka, 1977 and 1978; Watanabe, 1980). A number of books have been compiled from reports of specific investigations and studies (Human Engineering Handbook Committee, 1966; Yoshida, 1969; Okada, 1970).
Building use
Yoshitake (1964) proposed in the late 1940s a method of investigating human behaviour in buildings. He studied behaviour by careful observation and produced theories which aimed to optimize parameters of, for example, rooms and furniture. For instance, the number of lavatories required in a school were determined from observation of the frequency of use. Yoshitake's students, as well as a number of other architects, have frequently used this type of technique to aid design decisionmaking (Yoshitake, 1970-1977). As well as studying the behaviour of building users, investigators have also occupied themselves with their wants and desires in direct studies of user requirements of buildings and other environments. Yoshida (1973) explored the differences between aspiration levels and actual working conditions among the employees of a variety of companies in Tokyo. Yamamoto (1980) showed that the effect of high population density of city-dwellers is not necessarily adverse, a finding which may have some relation to the relatively low crime rate in Japanese cities.
Environmental Psychology in Japan
317
Public nuisances and disasters
A variety of studies have concerned such areas of public nuisance as traffic noise (Izumi, 1978 and 1979; Kimura et al., 1980); vibration in tall buildings (Goto, 1975); the wind effects caused by high-rise buildings (Murakami et al., 1980), and the obstruction of sunshine by other buildings (Ogisso, 1972). Attempts have also been made to predict the behaviour of people in fires (Kobayashi and Horiuchi, 1979) and earthquakes (Abe, 1980).
The General Features of Japanese Environmental Psychology Research
Consideration of the numbers of relevant papers and articles published by the various professional bodies shows that architects are doing most of the research in this area. This bears some relation to the much greater growth of schools of architecture and building technology than of schools of psychology in the Japanese universities, which is itself related to the universities' response to rapid economic growth. In addition the schools of architecture are in engineering colleges and faculties, which is a different practice from that in, for instance, the U.S.A. These characteristics have resulted in there being a large number of architects who carry out both research and design activities. The statistics for 1972 show that the Architectural Institute of Japan and the Japanese Society for the Science of Design record 59 investigations, whereas the Japanese Psychological Association only record 10 relevant publications (Hagino, 1980). A multiple volume series in architecture now contains one of the most extensive of current books on environmental psychology (Inui et al., 1982). The content of the research carried out by architects does, however, raise some problems. A great deal of the work described relates to surveys and experiments which are extremely context-specific and have not received any further theoretical consideration. Thus, there is a sense in which, although they use psychological techniques and are related to the environment, these studies cannot be regarded as primary examples of environmental psychology. It must be remarked that it has taken a very long time to form a relevant learned society. Academic sectionalism is common throughout the world but is perhaps more marked than usual in Japan. The contemporary segmentation of academic societies has in fact made the activities of researchers in this broad and interdisciplinary field more difficult than it would otherwise have been. It is only in the last few years that there have been professors of architecture active in this field who have been appropriately recognized. The newly established society for the field (MERA) has only about 50 members at present but it is expected that it will serve as a channel for the dissemination of information to those, particularly foreign research workers, who wish to learn about the activities of its members. The problem of language should also be mentioned, since most researchers in this field, and more particularly psychologists, have frequently referred to Englishlanguage literature and indeed some translations of anglophone texts have appeared in Japanese. However, few Japanese are as familiar with, for example, French or German, and therefore the ability of Japanese academics to refer to those sources is restricted. In the reverse direction, very little information flows from Japanese into English
318
M. Inui
and very little Japanese work has found its way into English or American journals. At international conferences the Japanese contribution has once again apparently been small: to the author's knowledge only two Japanese contributions have been made to E D R A (Seguchi, 1978; Ohno, 1980); Two to the 1979 International Conference on Environmental Psychology (Nakamura and Kitamura, 1979; Shimizu, 1979b); and five to the 1982 IAPS conference at Barcelona (Inui, 1982; Kitaura, 1982; Matsumoto and Taniguchi, 1982; Mimura, 1982; Shimizu, 1982). By comparison with the number of Japanese contributions to other scientific societies this appears to be quite small. Academic sectionalism has evidently made some contribution to this problem. Conclusions
Environmental psychology in Japan has experienced a quite rapid growth to a considerable level of activity. While there is no reason to see it as inferior in quality to the environmental psychology of the West, it has concerned itself with some environmental problems which are specific to Japan and in so doing has made a direct approach to the solution of practical problems and therefore to the development of the built environment. Its major shortcoming is perhaps a shortage of theoretical elaboration and there is a real need for the introduction of more psychological thinking into the field. Interdisciplinary work has been hampered by academic sectionalism but it is hoped and expected that the new society (MERA) will make progress in breaking down this resistance to the proper development of the field as a whole. The problem still remains, however, that most Japanese work is unknown in the West and has therefore made little contribution to the development of the subdiscipline in total. It is therefore clear that we should encourage the export of Japanese research to the rest of the world, and that in particular the exchange of scholars and researchers between Japan and the West should also be promoted. References
Unless otherwise stated, the literature is written in Japanese, i.e. each title is the translation.
Abe, K. (1980). (in English). Panic potential as a predictor of human behaviors in case of disasters in metropolitan area. In G. Hagino and W. H. Ittelson (eds), pp. 47-55. Akiyama, T. (1967). Design and Psychology. Tokyo: Kajima Institute Publishing. Araki, M. et al., (1982). An empirical investigation of sign-recognition in various environmental contexts. Transactions of the Architectural Institute of Japan, No. 312, pp. 92-9; etc. The Architectural Institute of Japan (ed.) (1976). Vision and visual environment (special issue). Journal of Architecture and Building Science, 91, No. 1114. Ashihara, Y. (1979). Asthetics of the Street. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten Publishers. Canter, D. and Inui, M. (eds) (1972). What is Environmental Psychology? Tokyo: Shokokusha Publishing. Canter, D. (1979). Psychology for Architects. Translated by T. Miyata and S. Uchida. Tokyo: Shokokusha Publishing. Canter, D. (1982). The Psychology of Place. Translated by T. Miyata and S. Uchida. Tokyo: Shokokusha Publishing. Center for Environmental Information Science (ed.) (1981). Environment, and sensation, perception and cognition (special issue). Environmental Information Science, 10, No. 3. Downs, R. M. and Stea, D. (eds) (1976). Image and Environment--Cognitive Mapping and
Environmental Psychology in Japan
319
Spatial Behavior. Translated by Y. Yoshitake et al. Tokyo: Kajima Institute Publishing. Goto, T. (1975). Criteria for motion in tall buildings. Transactions of the Architectural Institute of Japan, No. 237, pp. 109-19. Hagino, G. (1980). (in English). Opening address--Trends in studies of environmental psychology in Japan. In G. Hagino and W. H. Ittelson (eds), pp. 1-14. Hagino, G. and Ittelson, W. H. (eds) (1980). (in English). Interaction Processes between Human Behavior and Environment. Proceedings of the Japan-United States Seminar. Higuchi, T. (1975). The Visual and the Spatial Structure of Landscape. Tokyo: Gihodo Publishing. Human Engineering Handbook Committee (ed.) (1966). Human Engineering Handbook. Tokyo: Kanehara. The Illuminating Engineering Institute of Japan (ed.) (1966). Theory for Better Seeing. Imai, S. (1973). Natural environment and human behavior. Japanese Psychological Review, 16, 231-44. Indow, T. and Kawai, S. (1965). Psychological study of optimal levels of illumination. Journal of the Illuminating Engineering Institute of Japan, 49, 52-63. The Industrial Products Research Institute (ed.) (1973). Psychological approach to design (special issue). Industrial Art News, 41, No. 1. Inui, M. (1969). (in English). Colour in the interior environment. Lighting Research and Technology, 1, 86-94. Inui, M. and Miyata, T. (1973). (in English). Spaciousness in interiors. Lighting Research and Technology, 5, 103-11. Inui, M. (1976). Colour Design and Architecture. Tokyo: Kajima Institute of Publishing. Inui, M. (1978). Lighting and the Visual Environment. Tokyo: Riko Tosho. Inui, M. (1982). (in English). Cross-cultural differences in perception of the visual environment, presented at IAPS in Barcelona. Inui, M., Osada, Y., Watanabe, H. and Akiyama, T. (1982). Environmental Psychology. Tokyo: Shokokusha Publishing. Iritani, T. (1974). An Introduction to Environmental Psychology. Tokyo: Japan Broadcast Publishing. Ittelson, W. H. et al. (1977). An Introduction to Environmental Psychology. Translated by M. Mochizuki and T. Utsuki. Tokyo: Shokokusha Publishing. Izumi, K. (1978-79). A study on the evaluation of the noisiness of sounds. Transactions of the Architectural Institute of Japan, No. 274, pp. 85-92 and No. 279, pp. 107-15. The Japanese Society of Social Psychology (ed.) (1973). Social psychology of environment. The Japanese Annals of Social Psychology, vol. 14. Kabayama, H. (1963). Study on adaptive illumination for sudden change of brightness. Journal of the Illuminating Engineering Institute of Japan, 47, 488-96. Kamiyama, K. (1964). Weather and Man. Tokyo: Kinokuniya Book Store. Kimura, S., So, M. and Inoue, K. (1980). Influence and evaluation of aircraft noise on life environment. Transaetions of the Architectural Institute of Japan, No. 287, pp. 89-98. Kitaura, K. (1978 79). Visual perception of the surface roughness in architectural materials and its quantification. Transactions of the Architectural Institute of Japan, No. 263, pp. 81-9 and No. 275, pp. 75-85. Kitaura, K. (1982). (in English). The playing space of children in high-rise apartments, presented at IAPS in Barcelona. Kobayashi, M. and Horiuchi, S. (1979). Analysis of occupant behavior in an office building under fire. Transactions of the Architectural Institute of Japan, No. 280, pp. 137-42 and No. 284, pp. 119-25. Kobayashi, S. (1961). An Introduction to Architectural Psychology. Tokyo: Shokokusha Publishing. Kohara, J. (1972). Wood Culture. Tokyo: Kajima Institute Publishing. Kuroda, M. (1965). Perspective--its history, Scienee and Art. Tokyo: Bijutsu Shuppansha. Lynch, K. (1968). The Image of the City. Translated by K. Tange and R. Tomita. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten Publishers. Matsumoto, N. and Taniguchi, H. (1982). (in English). An estimation of the visual effects of apartment blocks in housing estates, presented at IAPS Barcelona.
320
M. Inui
Mercer, C. (1979). Living in Cities, Psychology and the Urban Environment. Translated by Y. Nagata. Tokyo: Shinyosha. Mochizuki, M. (1976). In the Personal Space. Tokyo: Buren Shuppan. Mochizuki, M. and Oyama, T. (eds) (1979). Environmental Psychology. Tokyo: Asakura Publishing. Murakami, S. et al. (1980). Wind effect on pedestrians, new criteria based on observation of 2000 persons. Transactions of the Architectural Institute of Japan, No. 287, pp. 99-109. Naka, Y. (1977-78). Simulation model of complicated passenger flow. Transactions of the Architectural Institute of Japan, No. 258, pp. 93-102 and No. 267, pp. 103 12. Nakamura, Y. and Kitamura, S. (1979). The analysis of associative structure of image map, presented at ICEP in Surrey. (Full paper in English is obtainable from the author). Nakamura, Y. (1980) (in English). Landscape perception and man's esthetic intervention to environment. In G. Hagino and W. H. Ittelson (eds), pp. 139-52. Nakamura, Y. (1982). An Introduction to the Learning of Scenery. Tokyo: Chuokoron-sha. Ogisso, S. (1972). Sunlight in a city. Tokyo: Corona Publishing. Ohno, R. (1980). (in English). Visual perception on texture, development of a scale of the perceived surface roughness of building materials. In R. R. Stough and A. Wandersman (eds), Proceedings of the 1lth Annual Conference of EDRA, pp. 193 200. Okada, M. (1970). The Size of Establishment. In Y. Yoshitake (ed.), Vol. 12. Oyama, T. and Inui, M. (eds) (1969). Psychology for Architects. Tokyo: Shokokusha Publishing. Proshansky, H. M., Ittelson, W. H. and Rivlin, L. G. (eds) Environmental Psychology--Man and his Physical Setting. Vol. 1-6. Translated by T. Akiyama et al. Tokyo: Seishin Shobo Publishers. Seguchi, T. (1978). Studying the concepts of relationship in design and rearranging techniques, presented at the 9th Annual Conference of EDRA. (Full paper in English is available from the author). Shimizu, H. (1979a). The Structure of City Image. Tokyo: Gihodo Publishing. Shimizu, H. (1979b). The Structure of image in central districts, Tokyo, presented at ICEP in Surrey. (Full paper in English is obtainable from the author). Shimizu, H. (1982). (in English). The structure of images--cognitive and evaluative---in central districts of Tokyo, presented at lAPS in Barcelona. The Society of the Japanese Psychological Review (ed.) (1973). Behavior and environment (special issue). Japanese Psychological Review, 16, No. 4. Sommer, R. (1972). Personal Space, The Behavioral Basis of Design. Translated by T. Akiyama. Tokyo: Kajima Institute PUblishing. Souma, I. and Sako, Y. (1976). Environmental Psychology. Tokyo: Fukumura Shuppan. Takahashi, T. (1980). (in English). Notes on the concept of space in the Japanese house. In G. Hagino and W. H. Ittelson (eds), pp. 153-62. Takei, M. (1969). Studies of the method of measuring and judging the density of buildings. Transactions of the Architectural Institute of Japan, No. 162, pp. 43-52 and No. 163, pp. 51-61. Takei, M. and Ohara, M. (1977). A study on measurement of the sense of oppression from a building. Transactions of the Architectural Institute of Japan, No. 261, pp. 105-14; etc. Takuma, T. (1980). Home Environment. In M. Yoshida (ed.), pp. 171-99. Togawa, K. (1969). The behavior of a crowd. In T. Oyama and M. Inui (eds), pp. 171-81. Uchida, S. (1979). An experimental study on the sense of visually-closed spaces. Transactions of the Architectural Institute of Japan, No. 282, pp. 113-22 and No. 285, pp. 117-25. Watanabe, H. (1980). Automaton model in architectural planning. Transactions of the Arc,.itectural Institute of Japan, No. 234, pp. 125-9. Watsuji, T. (1935). Climate--a Philosophical Study. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten Publishers. (The English translation was available but is now out of print.) Yamamoto, K. (1980). The influence of the high density of populations. In M. Yoshida (ed.), pp. 201 45. Yoshida, M. (1969). Industrial Psychology. Tokyo: Baifukan. Yoshida, M. (1973). Realities and aspirations of housing environment among the metropolitan salary-man. Japanese Psychological Review, 16, 259-76.
Environmental Psychology in Japan
321
Yoshida, M. (ed.) (1980). Psychology in City Environment and Home. Tokyo: Shok0kusha Publishing. Yoshitake, Y. (1964). Studies in Architectural Planning. Tokyo: Kajima Institute Publishing. Yoshitake, Y. (ed.) (1970--77). Architectural Planning, Vol. 1-12. Tokyo: Maruzen.