TALK “Your Emotional City!”: Berlin as a Case Study for Urban Aesthetic Emotions

I will first show how the built environment and the individual are intimately intertwined. This is the aspect of integration: studies on statistical learning and task-driven neuroplasticity show how we integrate features of the built environment into our perceptual, affective, and cognitive habits. Second, I consider intervention as a further dimension beyond integration. I will consider how certain urban features stand out as fascinating, beautiful, and challenging. These engage us in ways that can change our perspective on the city and ourselves. This second aspect highlights aesthetic emotions towards urban elements (such as great architecture, public art, social situations) and their potentially transformative effects. I discuss both aspects through a case study. This is the ongoing citizen science project "Your Emotional City!" in which participants (n>1,000) report their daily emotions and rate the beauty and interestingness of places.