materials library / outcomes

NEURODESIGN® · 22 OUTCOMES

Outcomes

Nobody sets out to specify a noise reduction coefficient. They set out to stop a guest hearing the corridor. This layer holds the things people are actually designing for, and works backwards from each one to the attributes that could reach it.

Each outcome names its response pathways, drawn from the mechanism library rather than invented here, and the material levers that bear on it. Where the research corpus reaches an outcome, the records are counted. Where it does not, that is stated.

outcomes
22
with corpus evidence
13/22
response pathways
22
space types
10

What are you designing for

Where the outcome is being sought

An outcome only means something in a setting, because the setting sets the exposure. The same material underfoot for ninety seconds in a corridor and for eight hours beside a bed is not the same specification decision.

out of scope for this version

  • HealthcareA principal source of the biophilic and acoustic evidence the hospitality case borrows from. Named so that the borrowing is visible.
  • WorkplaceWhere the ventilation and cognition literature was mostly produced.
  • EducationWhere the classroom acoustics evidence sits.
  • ResidentialLongest exposure of any setting, with full occupant control over the specification.
  • Senior livingWhere contrast, footing and acoustics carry clinical consequences.
  • Retail and transportBrief dwell, high throughput, a different exposure model entirely.

For whom

Recorded because a finding produced in one population does not automatically hold in another, and because almost every record in the corpus was produced in the first of these groups. Where a study population is narrow, that narrowness stays attached to the finding.

  • General adultsThe default population in almost every study in the corpus, and usually a young one.
  • Older adultsReduced contrast sensitivity, higher illuminance requirement, altered thermal regulation and greater consequence from a fall.
  • ChildrenDifferent contact behaviour, closer viewing distances, higher hand-to-mouth exposure.
  • Neurodivergent occupantsSensory load tolerance is the defining variable, and it is the outcome least served by existing product data.
  • Shift workers and staffLong, repeated exposure with cleaning chemistry on top. Hospitality's largest exposed population and the least considered.
  • People with respiratory or chemical sensitivityThe population for whom emissions differences that are marginal on average are not marginal at all.
  • People with hearing lossReverberation and background level have a much larger effect on intelligibility than they do for normal hearing.
  • People with low visionSurface contrast becomes a safety attribute rather than an aesthetic one.

Response pathways

The route by which a sensory exposure is proposed to reach a person. These are not defined here. Each one names the family it belongs to in the mechanism library, so that the same process is not described twice in two vocabularies.

  • Visual processingLuminance, colour and spatial frequency entering the visual system. The route for reflectance, contrast and pattern.Vision
  • Visual complexity processingHow much structure a surface presents across spatial scales, and the cost of resolving it.Visual complexity
  • Photoreception and circadian signallingSurfaces do not emit light, but they decide how much of it survives to reach the eye and with what spectrum.Light and photobiology
  • Auditory processingReverberation, background level and intelligibility as shaped by absorptive and reflective surfaces.Acoustics
  • Olfactory processingEmitted compounds reaching the olfactory epithelium, and the associative memory route that follows.Olfaction
  • Touch and material perceptionMechanoreception of roughness, compliance and texture at the fingertip and through the sole.Touch and material perception
  • ThermoreceptionHeat drawn from or given to skin at contact, governed by effusivity rather than by air temperature.Temperature
  • Respiratory exposureVolatile and semi-volatile compounds and particulate entering the breathing zone.Air and respiration environment
  • Multisensory integrationWhere a material is warm to touch, matte to look at and absorbent to sound at once, and the channels are not experienced separately.Multisensory integration
  • Autonomic regulationSympathetic and parasympathetic state, the most commonly measured outcome in material exposure studies.Autonomic regulation
  • Stress physiologyEndocrine and cardiovascular stress response.Stress physiology
  • Attentional captureInvoluntary orienting to salient surface features.Attention
  • Cognitive restorationRecovery of directed attention capacity.Cognitive restoration
  • Executive loadWorking memory and control resources consumed by the environment rather than by the task.Executive function
  • Threat and safety appraisalRapid appraisal of a surface or space as safe, including slip and footing appraisal.Threat and safety
  • Affective responseValence and arousal, usually the first thing measured and the hardest to attribute.Emotion regulation
  • Aesthetic responsePreference and fluency, distinct from affect and frequently confused with it.Aesthetic response
  • Nature responseThe proposed route for natural materials specifically, and the one carrying the most contested inferential load in this library.Nature response
  • Memory encoding and associationEnvironmental cues entering episodic memory, strongest on the olfactory channel.Memory
  • Sleep regulationSleep onset, continuity and depth, the defining hospitality outcome and the longest exposure any interior delivers.Sleep
  • InteroceptionPerception of internal bodily state, including thermal and respiratory comfort.Interoception
  • Spatial cognitionOrientation and wayfinding, where materials act as landmarks and boundary cues.Spatial cognition