Spatial Perception: A Critical Bibliometric Inquiry

Abstract

In this study, it is aimed to answer the research question "what is the place and status of architectural research in perception studies?". At the same time, determining the validity of the VOSviewer program, which is widely used for systematic bibliometric analysis, within the scope of the study constitutes an indirect secondary objective of the research. In this direction, two consecutive bibliometric analyses, each with a different depth, were conducted to see the range of spatial perception studies and to explore its sub-expansions. In this context, two keyword groups were created for the first two phases of the study. Document type and category were restricted to determine the research framework. In this framework, the studies identified in the first phase (n=2727) and the second phase (n=243) were transferred to the VOSviewer program for bibliometric analysis and analyzed. In the last phase of the study, a flow-quantity diagram was created for the article studies identified in the second phase using the Sankey diagram generator (n=92). When the studies scanned in Web of Science were analyzed, it was found that the studies involving the concepts in the research framework were mostly related to the concept of comfort and the least related to the concept of happiness.