Abstract:

The present work presents the methodology and results of a multisensory activity carried out with undergraduate students in design. Based on the semiotic theories of Lúcia Santaella and Julio Plaza and with the title of Multisensory Workshop, the activity had as objective to awaken in the participants the awareness for the integrated use of the five senses in the design projects. In addition, the activity promoted discussions of questions about the sensory perception present in the participants' daily life, having obtained positive results such as retention of the attention of the participants and engagement. Therefore, we aim, through this article, to disseminate the proposal of a multisensory approach, whether in academic activities or in professional practice.

The senses, according to Santaella (2005), "are devices for interaction with the external world whose function is to receive information necessary for survival." This interaction in turn does not occur in isolation through each of the senses. Julio Plaza will say that they are not "departmentalized senses, but synesthesias as interrelation of all the senses" (1987, p. 46). The author argues that it is the interrelationship of the senses that guarantees us the understanding of reality. He says that "thought itself is intersemiotic and this quality is concretized in languages and their hybridization" (Plaza, 1987, p. 30). It is based on this premise that we bring the proposal of an activity that stimulates the reflection of the sensorial perception and its influence in the more ordinary daily routine to activities specialized in communication, such as the design.

The workshop was structured in five stages. Stage 1 consisted of the presentation of the organizers and the participants, as well as the presentation of the workshop structure. Step 2 consisted of a brief introduction on the multisensory theme. The basic concepts of sensation, perception and meaning have been clarified. In step 3, we present participants with examples of different stimuli to the senses and their influence on our perception. The content was transmitted in an interactive way, and the students were invited to interact in seven experimental activities involving the senses of sight, olfaction, hearing, touch and tasting. In stage 4, the students were submitted to a practical and individual activity in which from the perception of an olfactory stimulus they should express a visual response. The results of the experiment were discussed in group in step 5. In this last stage the experience of the whole workshop was also discussed in a general way.

The activity brought as a contribution a reflection about projecting objects into an increasingly complex world in which the experience through the senses has gained more and more notoriety. We argue that to the extent that projects seek more correlation between the evoked stimuli, the more significant the interaction between user and product.

Keywords:

Design, perception, multissensorial, workshop.