EVALUATING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FRACTALITY AND IMAGEABILITY PRINCIPLES FOR SUSTAINABLE URBANISM: AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY

Abstract

The mental image is a silhouette of the space formed in the mind due to interpreting and organizing environmental information and sensations. This process is known as the perception and cognition process. In this process, the environmental characteristics that attract a person’s attention convert to information and are recorded in memory as a mental image. The mental image formed in easily perceived and cognized spaces is more permanent and remembered more clearly. In the formation process of the mental image, the working process of memory is among the essential issues to be examined. Generally, people perceive, recognize, and save the environmental characteristics that are easily classified, ordered hierarchically, repeated serially in proportional harmony, and diversified free from chaos and monotony more easily and quickly in memory (Klinger and Salingaros, 2000). At the same time, environments designed with fractal geometry principles have these properties. Fractal geometry, which is the geometry of nature, defines the transition from ordered to disordered (Mandelbrot, 1982: 170). Fractal geometry and human mental functions are interrelated. Fractal geometric objects contain perceptual properties suitable for human nature. These properties help form the mental image clearly and remember it quickly. Fractal geometry is described by a numerical expression defined as the fractal dimension. As a result of the above descriptions, this study has two basic hypotheses: “as the fractal dimension increases, the imageability increases” and “the characteristics that cause the formation of the mental image match with the characteristics of fractal geometry.” In this study, the imaginability of space was evaluated through fractal theory. Previous studies on the imageability of the space were only questioned with subjective methods; however, an objective method was proposed in this study, and its accuracy was reinforced with a subjective method.