Building Humanity: £10m research project into the influence of the built environment on the development of the mind

Building Humanity: £10m research project into the influence of the built environment on the development of the mind. The University of Sussex is to participate in a new £10 million research project that is thought to be the largest ecological experiment on embodied visual perception ever attempted. The project asks in what ways the material structures of human settlements such as buildings, roads, and artefacts change fundamental patterns of thought and attention and the way that minds process information. The researchers will conduct 41 different world-wide case studies with locations chosen to sample very distinct types of societies ranging from Amazonian and African hunter-gatherers to traditional peasants in South America, Africa or India, and present day European urban societies. The project, which includes £1.7 million of funding for the University, will develop and deploy a new synergistic methodology that combines multiple real-world case studies with state-of-the-art visual neuroscience, and agent-based simulations. It aims to deliver the first fully-integrated framework for understanding the cycles by which humans make and transform the structured worlds that make and transform their minds. Andy Clark , Professor of Cognitive Philosophy at the University of Sussex, is one of four PIs leading the unique six-year project combining archaeological materials, visual neuroscience, and simulationbased studies.