Neuroarchitectural approach in the preservation of cultural heritage and investigatikkon of visual perception using the eye tracking method

With the addition of developments in industrial production methods to cities that have moved away from a human-centered understanding of development, architecture has turned into an object of consumption and has anonymised. With the destruction of these individual units that make up the city; the built environment has moved away from meeting the non-conscious, psychological, aesthetic and aesthetic needs of its inhabitants. This approach is also seen in historical city centers and cultural heritage conservation practices. Every intervention and change made to the cultural heritage, which is a source that forms the connection of societies with their history, causes permanent loss in the meaning of the place. A place that loses its meaning leads to the disappearance of "memory" and loss of identity. For this reason, it is important to protect the visual perception of historical buildings, which are important imagination points of the city, which form the identity and culture of people, ensure their attachment to the place and complete the perception of the city in their memory. With the use of developing cognitive sciences and neuromarketing techniques in the field of architecture, measuring the impact of the built environment and spatial elements on people and meeting their needs in this direction will become possible with the increasing multidisciplinary neuroarchitectural approach in recent years. Within the content of this thesis, firstly, the conceptual framework and necessity of the neuroarchitectural approach is explained by providing information about cognitive science and neuromarketing methods, which are widely used in architecture, together with literature research. The relationship between eye tracking, one of the neuroarchitectural methods, and visual perception and authenticity in architectural conservation is examined. Four historical cultural heritage buildings in Konya city that have recently undergone conservation-restoration were selected with expert recommendations. The facades of the buildings before and after the conservation-restoration application were photographed and organized for the study by adhering to the same photographic features. In the study conducted at Konya Technical University, 36 participants were shown the before and after photographs of the heritage buildings on a screen in a randomized order, while eye tracking data was collected with an eye tracker. The participants' attention and changes in eye movements on the façade of the historic building before and after the conservation-restoration application were statistical analyzed and the change in visual perception was determined in this way. Then, the relationship between the conservation-restoration application and the eye-tracking data was investigated with a questionnaire. As a result of the analysis, it was concluded that the II. Kılıçarslan Kiosk and the reconstruction application did not reflect the first state of the building, while the restoration applications to the Girls' Teacher's School (stone building), Konya Train Station and Aslanlı Kışla Mosque preserved the general visual perception, even if there were partial differences. Together with the increase in the number of studies similar to this study and the integration of neuroscientific techniques into conservation, it will be possible to pave the way for visually and perceptually consistent and accurate restoration approaches, and it will be possible to identify and protect visual perception in the preservation of the authenticity of cultural heritage.