Taylor-Coville and Eves probed how our weight influences our perceptions of the world around us. Their findings can be useful to designers trying to understand and utilize data collected from space users, for example. Taylor-Coville and Eves found “more exaggerated reports of staircase steepness in overweight than in healthy-weight participants.” These impressions matter because they have public health implications: “Overweight pedestrians are more likely to avoid stair climbing when a motorized alternative is available…Pedestrians navigating the built environment are likely to base their choices on ‘feel’ rather than making careful perceptual estimates of the alternatives…the greater perceptual bias in the overweight for stair steepness might deter them from a type of physical activity that would be beneficial for their health.”
Guy Taylor-Coville and Frank Eves. 2016. “Carrying a Biological ‘Backpack’: Quasi-Experimental Effects of Weight Status and Body Fat Change on Perceived Steepness.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, vol. 42, no. 3, pp. 331-338.
Sally Augustin, PhD, a cognitive scientist, is the editor of Research Design Connections (www.researchdesignconnections.com), a monthly subscription newsletter and free daily blog, where recent and classic research in the social, design, and physical sciences that can inform designers’ work are presented in straightforward language. Readers learn about the latest research findings immediately, before they’re available elsewhere. Sally, who is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, is also the author of Place Advantage: Applied Psychology for Interior Architecture (Wiley, 2009) and, with Cindy Coleman, The Designer’s Guide to Doing Research: Applying Knowledge to Inform Design (Wiley, 2012). She is a principal at Design With Science (www.designwithscience.com) and can be reached at sallyaugustin@designwithscience.com.