Site Visit vs Mental Visualization on Lanna Architecture: A Study on Working Memory in Young Adult

The rise of modern architecture styles has strongly impacted the younger generation globally in the current century. This research is designed to study the performance of working memory on understanding Lanna architecture with young adults at a large university in northern Thailand, that of Mae Fah Luang University in Chiang Rai Province, Thailand. In this study, the research focuses on studying the effectiveness of young adults’ working memory to discern Lanna architecture through site visits and mental visualization. The outcomes of this research can help improve architecture pedagogy in the future. For the methodology, questionnaires were used by collecting data from 412 university students from a university in northern Thailand. The data then were analyzed using mean, standard deviation, and p-value. This study concludes that the performance of working memory on the comprehension of Lanna architecture through site visits and mental visualization for young adults was positive.


INTRODUCTION
The rise of modern architectural styles has had a strong impact upon the younger generation globally in the current century, especially young adults born since 2001. Hamed Niroumand et al. (2012 asserts that modern architectural styles emerged all over the world from the end of the second world war, based on functional designs rather than historical designs. As a result, young adults worldwide have been mainly familiar with modern architectural styles since they grew up. This research presented working memory performance on young adults at a large university in northern Thailand, Mae Fah Luang University in Chiang Rai province, Thailand, as the focus setting for this research. Gathercole, S.E. & Alloway, T.P. (2008) pointout that working memory is important in the late teens. The range of age for young adults falls in between nineteen years old and the early twenties. Gathercole, S.E. & Alloway, T.P.(2008) also highlight that working memory consists of three subcomponents of working memory, namely, verbal short-term memory, visuospatial short-term memory, and the control executive. They describe working memory as a system of interconnected memory factors that are situated in different elements of the brain. More specifically, verbal short-term memory involves spoken language in numbers, words and sentences, visuospatial short-term memory handles images, pictures and data about places, and central executive facilitates with other subcomponents of working memory As a result, the age of young adults plays an important role in this study. This study predicts that collaboration between working memory and the age of young adults can achieve the ability to identify Lanna architecture through different settings, site visits and mental visualization. Therefore, the age of young adults will provide proof regarding their ability to identify their understanding of Lanna architecture through words, images, sounds, etc. In addition, Freitas, M. I. d'Ávila et al. (2007) assert that the three subcomponents of working memory have a significant role in controlling attention and coordinating activity in young adults. Moreover, this current study involves different activities set out to test the ability of young adults as concerns their knowledge of Lanna architecture.

Young Adult
A young adult or a late adolescent is defined as a person who is in his or her late teenage years or early twenties, which is 18 -24 years old. (Teipel, K., 2013).

Lanna Culture
Current evidence suggests that nearly a thousand years ago, the first Thai descendants appeared in the far north of present-day Thailand. Some of them settled on fertile valleys along rivers that flowed through the rugged, misty mountains, forming small principalities, which slowly grew in both population and power. By the mid 13th century, there were enough principalities to unite under an ambitious ruler known as Mangrai who formed the kingdom known as Lanna, which extended to Laos and the Shan states of Burma with Chiang Mai as its capital city. The royal family with its own traditions was more or less sealed off by a range of lofty mountains that prevented easy access by outsiders (Amranand, P. & Warren, W., 2000). Therefore, Lanna culture persists in everyday life of people in the north of Thailand.  Figure 4, and Wat Phra That Lampang Luang in Lampang Province in Figure 5. Also, the form of Wat Xieng Thong, Luang Prabang in Figure 6 was a prototype in construction.

Site Visit
Site visits are an important part of architecture and civil engineering pedagogy. Faculty of Engineering, University of Strathclyde (2021) defines "Site visit" as visiting an actual construction enterprise or design firms to let students flourish knowledge on design and construction's theory into a real experience.

Mental Visualization
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP) (2014) explains that the term mental visualization derives from mental imagery which means "seeing in the mind's eye", "hearing in the head", "imaging the feel of", among others. Indeed, the images appear in one's head. This phenomenon is a quasi-perceptual experience. That is, it contains perceptual experience, but sometimes it happens without any external stimuli. This experience causes the human brain to project the images or something in the mind, soul, or brain. Mental visualization is also called mental imagery. Mental rehearsal is explained as a memory that resembles perceptual memories but can occur in the lack of the right stimuli for the specific perception. In addition, Dörnyei, Z. and Kubanyiova, M. (2014) refer to Shakespeare's articulate term in Hamlet to depict the mental visualization as seeing in the mind's eye.

Social Learning Theory
People learn through observing others' behaviours, attitudes, and the outcomes of those behaviours. According to Bandura, "Most human behaviour is learned observationally through modelling: from observing others, one forms an idea of how new behaviours are performed, and on later occasions, this coded information serves as a guide for action." (Bandura, 1997). Social learning theory explains human behavior in terms of continuous reciprocal interaction between cognitive, behavioral, and environmental influences.

Tool of Measurement
The participant's responses were measured by scales adapted from Bucholtz and Smith (1991). The nine-point differential scale asks participants to rate whether Lanna architecture and Lanna culture categories are closer to one or the other of two bipolar attributes. Our measurements included twelve attributes using a Likert scale ranging from 1 (very disagree) to 9 (very agree). In addition, twelve attributes were put into three categories which are aesthetics, architecture and apprehension.

Procedures
To test the hypothesis, information was gathered by questionnaire with the approval of the student. To ensure instrument reliability and to prevent respondent sensitization, respondents were instructed to answer the questionnaire with conditions of Lanna culture and Lanna architecture in a site visit and mental visualization.

RESULTS
Participants and measurements: 412 students participated in the study. Of which, 39.5 percent were male and 60.5 percent were female. The average age was 21.22 years old. In terms of academic year, 57.6 percent were freshmen, and 20.1 percent sophomores, 13.3 percent juniors, 6.3 percent seniors and 1.9 percent master students. Business-Chinese majors made up the highest number of students at 34.6 percent.
Hypotheses H-0: All three classes of adjectives between the site visit and mental visualization were related in the working memory of the young adults from Mae Fah Luang University related. H-1: All three classes of adjectives between site visit and mental visualization were not related in the working memory of the young adults from Mae Fah Luang University related.
To test H-0, p-values were computed between: 1) The paired t-test on the class of aesthetics adjectives with a site visit and mental visualization. 2) The paired t-test on the class of architecture adjectives with a site visit and mental visualization.
3) The paired t-test on the class of apprehension adjectives with a site visit and mental visualization.

Test of Hypothesis
To test the hypothesis, p-value analyses were used to estimate the relationships between the comprehension of Lanna architecture and culture among young adults at a large university in the north of Thailand. This study tests the comprehension of Lanna architecture and culture among young adults by comparing site visit and mental visualization through the three classes of adjectives of aesthetics, architecture, and apprehension. According to the p-value being less than 0.05, this is statistically significant. In this study, young adults from Mae Fah Luang University answered the question on the class of architecture adjectives, with the p-value at 0.0056, which is statistically significant. Therefore, the p-value accepts H-0. According to the p-value being less than 0.05, this is statistically significant. In this study, young adults from Mae Fah Luang university answered the question on the class of apprehension adjectives, with the p-value at 0.5936, which is not statistically significant. Therefore, the p-value rejects H-0.

DISCUSSION
The result supports the mentioned hypothesis. This study concludes that the comprehension of Lanna architecture and culture among young adults at a large university in the north of Thailand is positive. This especially relates to their positive perception of Lanna architecture. Bandura's social learning theory (1977) suggests that pertaining representations, sometimes referred to as visual imagery, involves drawing a mental picture of the observed act and storing that picture in the memory. Visual imagery is, of course, quite a common process. We have a "picture in our heads" of people we know or have known; of experiences, sad and happy; of beautiful vacation scenes; and so on. Likewise, a person who has seen Lanna architecture on a site visit and with mental visualization representations can recall positive images of the objects and develop positive attitudes towards Lanna culture and architecture in general.
In addition, the working memory towards the perception of these three classes of adjectives, for aesthetics adjectives and apprehension adjectives, did not affect the site visit and mental visualization. This means young adults did not agree to both methods in the aesthetics and apprehension's context. In contrast, the results reported that our respondents agreed that architecture adjectives affect the site visit and mental visualization, which means young adults agreed to both methods in architecture's context significantly.
In conclusion, this study confirms that site visits and mental visualization are significantly effective approaches to understand Lanna architecture via the working memory in young adults at a large university in the north of Thailand. In addition, the working memory does not only involve visual imagery but also words, among others. Furthermore, the selected ages of the subjects in this study are between nineteen and the early twenties, representative of the age of most university students in Thailand in general. As a result, with the results from our research, we also can integrate the findings with further study in the area of architecture pedagogy at the university level, not limited solely to Lanna architecture as in this study.