The Restorative Impact of Perceived Open Space: Applied Neuroaesthetics for Rehabilitation Environments 1187

Explore the neurobiology of spatial perception and discover how photographic overhead views of the sky, which have traditionally been used in healthcare settings as a positive distraction feature, can be designed to generate a deeper therapeutic effect. Rather than distract the patient’s attention from the distress of their condition, treatment, or surroundings, fine art open sky imagery can be captured, composed, and installed in rehabilitation settings to create the credible architectural illusion of perceived proximity to wide open, vertical space.

This distinction separates traditional nature photography as a representational art form and introduces visual-spatial imagery as an artistic technology to extend perceived space. Illusory imagery is able to seduce our hardwired habits of perception into re-living the visceral experience encoded in our memory. In other words, illusions of nature in the proper scale, perspective, and point-of-view become a spatial reference frame that remaps our body’s perceived location in space.