This study addressing the utility of cognitive theories in performing public and cultural facilities related studies, including spatial or visual analysis of museums, art galleries and the like, is meaningful on two grounds. First, it facilitates better understand human needs in an environment-behavior relation point of view. That is, actual human needs should not be governed by architectural determinism, but can be resolved by understanding observers with different structures of mind. Second, a better system of design can be obtained by continually updating results of cognitive studies of this sort. Literatures are critically reviewed to explore various aspects of cognitive thinking.
Two major aspects of cognitive thinking are explored on an empirical ground. First, this study proposes that group difference in environmental responses should be understood in a cultural context. Culture is an innate nature of members of a group in viewing and interpreting a set of physical environments. Cultural identity in environmental needs can be achieved from idiosyncratic group difference. Defined as learning background in design related areas, second, professionalism is deemed another predictor of environmental needs. That is, observers think and do based on what they previously learned, so-called the learning effect of environmental needs.