Abstract
The purpose of this study is to select and analyze words that represent various emotional states towards a spatial environment. Selecting appropriate words for the sensibility evaluation of a spatial environment is a process of constructing sensibility indicators, so that an accurate selection of sensibility words is very important. To collect basic words for this study, words for expressing sensation, emotional states, and sensibility regarding a spatial environment have been collected first via free association and a literature review of previous studies. In the second stage, the selected words are refined. Fifteen evaluators have participated in the first process of refining words, 140 college students participated in the second process, and than the final list of 277 refined words has been selected. During the third stage, 15 specialists were asked to evaluate the appropriateness of sensibility evaluation words, for that 7 point-scale has been applied. Then, 99 words with an average point of 4.55 or more and a standard deviation of 1.55 or lower were selected. After investigating the similarity in the meanings of the selected words, 55 pairs of contrasting words have been selected as a final list of sensibility evaluation words. During this last stage, 307 college students majoring in related fields were asked to evaluate the appropriateness of sensibility evaluation words for a spatial environment, and 7 point-scale was obtained. A factor analysis, cluster analysis, and multidimensional analysis have been conducted on the data obtained from these survey. According to the results of the factor analysis, the eight important factors are obtained from the sensibility evaluation criteria of a spatial environment(form, texture, function, value, comfort, aesthetics, atmosphere, and affinity). The factors obtained from this study can be used in the beginning stage of evaluating the sensibility factors of a spatial environment. In addition, the results of this study can be used as basic data when constructing a list of evaluation indicators to select various complex sensibility words for a space; or as general indicators when evaluating various spatial design factors.