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Anonymity
Mobility
Constraints
Cognition
Observation
Communication
Funding
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Address:
Althanstrasse 14 A-1090 Vienna/Austria
TEL: Austria + (43) -1-4277-54769 FAX -4277-9547
E-mail directly from here
The institute
was founded in 1991 by the Ludwig-Boltzmann-Society and is directed by
Irenaeus Eibl-Eibesfeldt and Karl Grammer. The Institute
is currently hosted by the Institute of Human Biology at the University
of Vienna. The research is dedicated to all kinds of mass-phenomena in
big cities.
In this century
human livelyhood migrated increasingly from the land to the cities. From
1950 to 1978 the urban world population doubled. If this trend continues,
the number will even double until the year 2000; then the majority of
the world population will live in cities. The urban environment has become
the favoured habitat for humans. But most of us do quite well in this
relatively new environment, despite daily hazzles, stress and anonymity.
The question then becomes inhowfar evolutionary theories can predict human
behaviour in such an anonymous urban environment. Ethological research
of the last 20 years showed that the human being is equipped with innate
behavioural tendencies and perceptions that had evolved as evolutionary
adaptions to the Stone Age when he lived in small groups as a hunter and
gatherer.
In the last 10,000 years a precipitous development from the Stone Age
to the technically civilized world came about in which man created large
cities and a resulting environment for which he does not seem to have
evolved.
Therefore the focal points of the Ludwig-Boltzmann-Institute for Urban
Ethology concentrate on the question: How does man manage to survive in
this evolutionary young and new situation?
Metatheories which are based on evolutionary theory allow predictions
about the choice of strategies depending on socio-economic conditions.
From them, models can be drawn up and tested by studying interactions
in their natural environment. The research topics result from the everyday
life situations that are forced upon us.
| Anonymity The
social situation in the big cities is characterized by encountering
strangers. Thus, our projects investigate phenomena from the field
of impression-management, judgement of strangers and both verbal and
non-verbal communication in public.
Mobility
City-structures force mobility. The behaviour in public transport
and in the street traffic is an important part of the city-dwellers
everyday life. Thus, in this field, we investigate phenomena of
density and aggression which are considered to be the main cause
for stress.
Structural
contraints in cities In this field the connection between
physical environment, housing satisfaction and behaviour is researched.
Current projects deal with semi-privat places and the structure
of residential buildings, as well as with public places. First results
show a positive connection between block-satisfaction, social networks,
interaction frequency on the places and special features.
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Perception
and Cognition: Evolutionary Aesthetics Most
animals and certainly humans respond to a certain class of stimuli
better then to others. These stimuli are called "aesthetical" and
may be a result of either adaptions in our evolutionary history or
sensory exploitation. In this field we are active in the development
and testing of stimuli on computers (landscapes, faces and bodies,
urban structures). Furtheron we analyze advertisements in respect
to what we call "biological primitives". Current work focuses on program
development which will allow auto-morphing and warping of faces, distortion
of facial forms and automatical assessment of symmetry and averageness.
(left is an automorph of the 16 most attractive faces of our current
project).
The framework of evolutionary aesthetics also applies to the perception
of landscapes, cities etc. See the projects page for developments
this direction. |
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observation methods Beside
these main fields the development of automatical methods of data collection
and -analysis in digital image processing constitutes another focal
point of our activity. Developments take place mainly on Apple MacIntosh
PPC. |
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Communication
Biological theories would predict that in communication the propagation
of intentions would raise the possibility of deception and we demonstrated
that interactions between strangers, a typical anonymous big city situation,
may be governed by specific deception avoidance rules. The paradigm of
this research thus is that the function of communication consists of attempts
to manipulate the information processing in the brain of a signal receiver
who does not realize the attempt to manipulate him. We find support for
this theory in olfactory communication, rhythmic movements and the change
of quality in movements.
Funding The projects are funded by the Austrian
Research Fonds, the City of Vienna, the Austrian Ministery of Transportation,
the German Max-Planck-Society, the Japanese Society for the Promotion
of Science and the Austrian National Bank.
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