M A A R T E N JACO B S

PSYCHOLOGY OF THE
VISUAL LANDSCAPE

2.1 INTRODUCTION

While environmental psychology is a leading discipline in the study of human responses to

the visual landscape, various other disciplines contribute to our understanding of the psycho-
logical perception of landscape as well, such as human geography and sociology. Despite the
disciplinary differences, all approaches share, explicitly or implicitly, three core assumptions
(Jacobs, 2006: 47): (1) the way people perceive landscapes is influenced but not determined
by physical landscape attributes, (2) a complex mental process of information reception and
processing mediates between the physical landscape and the psychological landscape, and
(3) various factors can exercise influence on this mental process, to be divided into biological,
cultural and individual factors (Bourassa, 1990, 1991). Figure 1 illustrates these shared as-
sumptions, and can be seen as a pre-disciplinary research model for studying the psychology
of the visual landscape.

Disciplinary approaches differ with respect to the aspects of landscape perception under
study (e.g. landscape preferences, meanings assigned to places), to the factors studied that
influence landscape perception, and to the theories employed to explain how those factors
influence landscape perception.

41
 Biological factors
Cultural factors
Individual factors

Physical landscape Mental process Psychological landscape

Figure 1
A default pre-disciplinary landscape perception research model

This chapter presents contributions of various disciplinary approaches to the study of psy-
chological responses to the visual landscape. Rather than giving a comprehensive overview,
which would require a lengthy chapter (see Jacobs, 2006: chapter 4, for an elaborated over-
view), the aims are to present examples of approaches that stress biological, cultural and in-
dividual factors to explain the constitution of the psychological landscape (i.e. how landscape
perception and experience come into being), to emphasise Dutch contributions within this
framework, and to discuss the various bodies of knowledge in the face of GIS systems that
support landscape policy, planning and design. To do so, the next three sections deal with
examples of research into landscape perception devoted to biological, cultural and individual
factors respectively. In the conclusion, the applicability of the various bodies of knowledge to
developing GIS based support systems for landscape policy, planning and design will be dis-
cussed.

2.2 B I O L O G I C A L FA C T O R S

The term ‘biological factors’ denotes innate dispositions that are evolutionarily determined
and fi xed in our genetic make-up. Adherents of the adaptive approach within environmental
psychology contend that some landscape preferences are inborn as responses to physical
landscape properties that have emerged in the course of biological evolution, because these
responses enhanced survival (Saegert and Winkel, 1990). To appreciate this approach, a little
understanding of the working of emotions is crucial. Generally, preferences are manifesta-
tions of emotions (LeDoux, 1996: 53; Jacobs, 2009): we tend to like objects or situations
that invoke positive emotions (e.g. happiness), and tend to dislike objects and situations that
invoke negative emotions (e.g. fear). Generic emotion research has demonstrated that many
aspects of emotions are innate (Darwin, 1872; Ekman, 1992, 1999; LeDoux, 1996: 113). The
innate aspects include some emotional bodily reactions, such as an increased heartbeat or the
tendency to freeze in the case of fear. These responses were beneficial to the survival of or-
ganisms, for their adaptive value in dealing with fundamental life tasks (Damasio, 2001: 60;
LeDoux, 1996: 40; Ekman, 1999). The tendency to freeze decreases the likelihood of being

42 Psychology of the visual landscape

spotted by a predator (predators typically react to movement), and the increased heartbeat
prepares the body for a flight reaction (Jacobs, 2009). Research has also demonstrated that
some stimuli automatically lead to emotional responses, without any previous learning being
involved (Jacobs, 2006: 171). For example, rats that are being raised in isolation in a laborato-
ry, never having seen a cat, show fear responses when exposed to a cat (LeDoux, 1996: 132).
The advantage of automatically responding with an emotional reaction to some stimuli is
that this response is quick: if an antelope would have to figure out the situation when it faces
a lion, the antelope would be the lion’s lunch (Jacobs, 2009). Thus, the emotional system has
evolved as an adaptive system that serves survival, and includes automatic responses to some
objects and situations.

The adaptive approach is concerned with these automatic, innate, quick, emotional responses
(Ulrich, 1983). Since the environment is crucial for survival, it is very likely, within the
framework of general evolution theory, that we have innate predispositions related to certain
aspects of our environment. Genes that predispose us to particular emotional reactions to
certain landscape attributes have survived in the course of evolution because those reactions
have turned out to be adaptive responses to situations of life importance for human beings.
Thus, innate landscape preferences are preferences for landscapes that were beneficial for our
distant ancestors (but not necessarily for us, because over the last couple of thousand years,
since the advent of agriculture 10.000 years ago, humans have created artificial environments
at a pace that is much faster than our genetic make-up can adapt to).

The first theoretical accounts of biologically determined landscape preferences were based on
the arousal theory, a general motivation theory developed by Berlyne to explain why people
are inclined to stick to certain situations for a longer period of time than to other situations.
Something (an artwork, a situation, a landscape) has a positive hedonic value if it is pleasant
and rewarding to keep in touch with it (Berlyne, 1974: 8). For example, landscapes highly
preferred by people have a high positive hedonic value. The stimuli that constitute an optimal
hedonic value are a mixture of arousal-increasing and arousal-decreasing properties (arousal
being the general level of excitement or activation). These stimuli make it cognitively difficult
to understand the situation, but at the same time make it possible to resolve the problem. Thus,
an optimal arousal potential trains our cognitive skills to resolve problems, and these are ca-
pacities we need to survive (Berlyne, 1971). While the complete arousal theory is a lot more
complex (Berlyne, 1971, 1973, 1974), early environmental psychologists have used the rather
simplified version as explained here. Wohlwill (1976) compared the results of then published
environmental psychological research with Berlyne’s theory, and found a relation between
landscape preference and the degree of mystery. He also found a relation with the degree to
which different landscape features fit to each other (Porteous, 1996: 119; Wohlwill, 1976).

43
 Kaplan and Kaplan assert that landscape preferences are ‘ancient and far-reaching’ (Kaplan
and Kaplan, 1989: 10), and have developed the preference matrix to explain for which land-
scapes we have innate preferences. The preference matrix globally resonates with Berlyne’s
theory and describes the conditions that optimise the possibility to gain knowledge of the
surrounding landscape. Gaining knowledge of a landscape depends on four factors: coher-
ence, legibility, complexity and mystery (Kaplan and Kaplan, 1983, 1989: 53; Kaplan, 1987).
According to Kaplan and Kaplan, we prefer those landscapes that score high values on all four
factors. Coherence and legibility facilitate understanding a scene. Enough complexity makes
a scene interesting, and mystery raises the expectation that there is more to learn about the
scene. These four factors as such are not biological factors, but reflect perceptual factors that
give the best opportunities to obtain the knowledge that is needed for survival. Thus, the bio-
logical factor in this theory is the assertion that liking those landscapes that foster obtaining
knowledge trains the cognitive system, and thus contributes to survival. Kaplan and Kaplan
(1989) report eleven empirical studies that have tested their theory: coherence and mystery
appeared significant predictors of landscape preferences in most of these studies, while com-
plexity and legibility were significant in only one study.

The theories of Berlyne and Kaplan and Kaplan share the assumption that we have evolution-
ary developed preferences because they serve optimal cognitive functioning. This explana-
tion, however, is very problematic in the face of recent progress in generic emotion research.
Comparative phylogenetic research has demonstrated that the emotional system came into
being at a much earlier stage in evolution than the cognitive system did (LeDoux, 2000).
Therefore, the emotional system cannot be an adaptation to exercise cognitive capacities
(Jacobs, 2006: 199). Explanations for innate landscape preferences must be much easier than
the ones offered by Berlyne, and Kaplan and Kaplan. We have innate landscape preferences
not because certain landscapes contribute to optimal cognitive functioning, but because cer-
tain landscapes have features that immediately serve survival. From this perspective, Apple-
ton’s prospect-refuge theory is a better explanation for innate preferences.

According to Appleton (1984, 1996), the relationship of the human subject to the perceived
environment is comparable to the relationship of an animal to its habitat. The innate human
preference for landscape features is a spontaneous reaction to the landscape as a habitat
(Appleton, 1975: 70). To put it simply: we prefer those landscapes that offered our primitive
ancestors the best chances of survival (Appleton, 1975; Orians, 1986). We like to see without
being seen: we prefer landscapes that allow us to hide, as well as to survey the environment.
Our ancestors - hunters and gatherers - needed to be able to hide from large predators. They
also needed to be able to survey the landscape, in order to gather vegetables and hunt for prey.
Appleton’s prospect-refuge theory states that landscapes that provide both prospect and ref-
uge opportunities are highly preferred, because they met the biological needs of our distant

44 Psychology of the visual landscape

ancestors. Thus, half open landscapes would be preferred over open landscapes or closed
landscapes, an assertion that is corroborated by empirical findings. These empirical findings,
however, do not necessarily determine whether Appleton´s explanation rings true, as alterna-
tive explanations are still possible (e.g. half open landscapes often provide an optimal mix of
coherence and mystery).

In addition to half-openness, an abundance of vegetation and an abundance of water are

thought to be landscape properties for which we have an innate preference (e.g. Schroeder
and Daniel, 1981; Ulrich, 1981, 1983, 1993; Yang and Brown, 1992). These innate preferences
are easy to explain: we need water to survive, and the presence of vegetation often indicates
the presence of food, water and a place to hide. Some scholars have suggested that we have
an innate preference for nature (e.g. Herzog, 1989, 1992; Schroeder, 1991; Ulrich, 1993;
Zube, 1991). However, it is highly unlikely that this hypothesis is true. Firstly, it contradicts
the findings of historians who revealed that, during the Middle Ages, people disliked nature
(Corbin, 1989; Lemaire, 1970). Secondly, because the hypothesis of an innate preference for
nature contradicts basic premises of the evolutionary approach itself. The genetic make-up of
humans does not change fast. We must theorise what the benefit has been for our distant an-
cestors – i.e. a hundred thousand years ago – to explain innate preferences. In those days, the
whole environment was natural. Hence, there was no evolutionary benefit at all for our ances-
tors to have genes that predispose us to a preference for nature. Probably, those who argue
that we have an innate preference for nature conflate nature with vegetation. While natural
landscapes often contain more vegetation than human-made landscapes, it is the vegetation,
not the naturalness, which triggers inborn mental dispositions to like those landscapes. To
conclude, theoretically, it is very likely that we have innate preferences for half-open land-
scapes, and for landscapes with vegetation and water, as empirical studies indicate. While
extensive cross-cultural research is absent, studies in various countries corroborate these as-
sertions. Importantly, nobody argues that landscape preferences are solely based on innate
dispositions: learning during the course of life affects those preferences as well.

2.3 C U LT U R A L FA C T O R S

While landscape perception and appreciation are in the end individual mental phenomena,
culture exercises great influence on the individual mind, and hence, might explain certain
experiential dispositions towards landscapes. Lehman et al. (2004) conclude in their review
study on psychology and culture that “much recent research has demonstrated the strength
of culture in influencing the perceptions, construals, thoughts, feelings, and behaviours of its
members”. Culture consists of a set of collective views and habits (Jacobs, 2006: 143). Culture
influences individual minds by means of public expressions: any material sign that can be

45
 used to convey a message from one mind to another, which include written and spoken words,
paintings, videos, body language, et cetera (Jacobs, 2006: 151). An individual, living in a cul-
ture, is exposed to a perpetual stream of public expressions that might influence his thoughts
about the object the public expressions expound on. For example, all individuals in western
culture get socialised into a certain view on nature by means of public expressions about the
way nature works (e.g. texts on ecosystem theory), what nature looks like (e.g. paintings, TV
documentaries), and what kind of experiences people have had in natural settings (e.g. po-
ems, conversations) (Jacobs, 2006: 152).

Although many sociological and anthropological studies are somehow related to places (since
social processes are often intimately related to places), sociological and anthropological stud-
ies and theories are seldom explicitly about place or landscape experiences (Gieryn, 2000).
This is a logical consequence of the object of the studies conducted by sociologists: social pro-
cesses and structures.

The bond between community and landscape is studied in anthropological work (Hirsch and
O’ Hanlon, 1996). For example, van Assche (2004) and Duineveld (2006) describe the various
bonds between images of places and self-definitions of communities. These works focus on
discourse, regarded as the production of meaning, that includes images of reality out-there as
well as images of self (van Assche, 2004; Duineveld, 2006). In this approach, landscape expe-
rience is seen as dependent on discourse, for in discourse, ideas and meanings are conveyed
between individuals.

Several historians have studied diachronic changes in the way people ascribe meaning to
landscape and nature (e.g. Schama, 1995; Corbin, 1989; Pyne, 1998). According to de Groot
(1999), for our distant ancestors – hunters and gatherers without a permanent residence –
nature was taken for granted as the immediate, omnipresent religious universe. Trees and
stones were thought to be animated. In that time, nature and culture were not separated. As
agriculture entered human history, people built permanent settlements. Man projected inten-
tions onto places; for example, a place has to be a field to grow corn. Nature and culture be-
came divided. Nature appeared as a disorderly thread, producing plagues, weeds and vermin.
Nature was an enemy of man (de Groot, 1999). For example, in the Middle Ages the ocean was
regarded as the chaotic domain of the devil, abandoned by god, inhabited by sea monsters
and ruled by chaos and death (Corbin, 1989). In the modern era, man started to master nature
by using technical innovations (de Groot, 1999). The fear of primeval nature slowly faded.
Writers, explorers, philosophers and painters constructed a romantic image of nature. The
appreciation of nature, then, is a typical product of modern western culture.

46 Psychology of the visual landscape

Historians pay little attention to the diversity of ideas in a particular space of time. Moreover,
historical research is often limited to the ideas of the upper class, such as writers, states-
men, painters, scientists and explorers. Little is known about the ideas of laymen. Since the
1990s, several Dutch philosophers and sociologists have been investigating images of nature
amongst the public. Images of nature are complex formations of meanings, functioning as
overall frames of mind, that structure the perception and valuation of nature (Buijs, 2000;
2009; Jacobs et al., 2002; Keulartz et al., 2000). This formation of meanings includes a cogni-
tive dimension (what nature is), a normative dimension (how to act towards nature) and an
expressive dimension (what the experiential values of nature are) (Keulartz et al., 2004). In
different images of nature, a particular natural phenomenon can be given different mean-
ings. For example, the ocean can be seen as primeval nature by people who have a particular
image of nature. For people who have another image, the same ocean can be seen as space
that provides leisure opportunities. Buijs (2009) has revealed five different images of nature
amongst the Dutch public: the wilderness image, the autonomic image, the inclusive image,
the aesthetic image and the functional image. People with a wild image of nature regard only
nature that is untouched by man to be ‘real’ nature; they consider it not right to exploit nature
for human purposes and regard rough nature without traces of human use the most beautiful.
At the other end of the spectrum, people who have a functional image of nature consider na-
ture that is highly influenced by man nature as well, consider it right to use nature for human
purposes and consider nature ordered by man to be the most beautiful. The other images fall
in between these extreme images. For example, people with an inclusive image consider eve-
rything to be nature as long as it grows spontaneously. In this image, man is allowed to inter-
vene in nature, but not too much. Nature that expresses peaceful coexistence between man
and nature is regarded as beautiful. The results of other empirical studies (Jacobs et al. 2002;
Keulartz et al., 2004, van den Born et al., 2001) resonate with the findings of Buijs.

Based on more than 20 years of landscape perception research in many areas in the Neth-
erlands, Coeterier (2000) argues that, within local cultures, inhabitants develop a special
way of looking at the surrounding landscape. Often, a leading theme, which depends on the
specific landscape, guides this way of looking. For example, in one region he found that the
predominant theme for people was to divide the landscape into a front, consisting of paved
roads where housing and human activities are concentrated, and a back, unpaved drives
where nature and silence were to be found. This leading theme comprises the nature of the
landscape as a whole and its function. Furthermore, Coeterier (1996, 2000) has found that
other important attributes that determine landscape perception and evaluation by inhabitants
are maintenance, naturalness, spaciousness, development in time, soil and water, and sensory
qualities. These attributes are abstract perceptual qualities, and the way people fill them in
depends on the leading theme. Thus, Coeterier developed a system of categories that deter-
mine a local culture’s way of assessing landscape.

47
 The individual mind is permeated with culture. Historical, sociological, and anthropological
studies into landscape have demonstrated cultural influences on the way people perceive cat-
egories of places (e.g. natural places) and particular places (e.g. a specific region). Individuals
are members of different cultural communities on different levels. As members of a global
western culture they might be socialised into a general appreciation of nature, as historians
have shown. As members of a national culture, they might be influenced by national dis-
course, e.g. the Dutch discourse of fighting against water, or the Polish discourse in which the
forest is given a specific nationalistic connotation since the forest was the place where resist-
ance to foreign powers started (Schama, 1995). As members of a local culture, people might
gradually adopt a specific way of assessing the place they inhabit. Cultural influence, then, is
a multi-layered set of influences.

2.4 I N D I V I D U A L FA C T O R S

Next to biological factors, which point to cross-cultural commonalities in landscape percep-

tion, and cultural factors, that indicate meanings assigned to landscape that are shared
within a cultural group and which may vary across groups and across time, the way a person
perceives landscapes also depends on individual factors: mental dispositions that result from
individual previous experiences or differences in personality traits. Think of a garden. Ac-
cording to the adaptive approach, someone’s preference for the garden is predictable on the
basis of general, non-individual factors, for example because it is a good mix of prospect and
refuge opportunities (Appleton, 1975) or because it is complex, mysterious, legible and coher-
ent (Kaplan and Kaplan, 1989). According to the images of nature approach, different people
might appreciate the garden differently, dependent on their image. Apart from that, the gar-
den can have special meanings for its owner and it can have a particular identity for people
who visit it often. During the course of life, people give meaning to particular places and be-
come attached to places (Tuan, 1980).

Previous experiences, and especially recurring patterns in previous experiences, leave traces
in the human brain, which is highly plastic (open to change) in nature. Psychologically, these
traces can be called mental concepts: enduring elementary mental structures, which are capa-
ble of playing discriminatory and inferential roles in an individual’s life, in the sense of influ-
encing various mental operations (Jacobs, 2006: 124). Neurologically, these mental concepts
are constituted by specific neural circuits. The neural mechanisms for acquiring new mental
concepts are unravelled by Kandel (2001): “our studies provide clear evidence that learning
results from changes in the strength of the synaptic connections between precisely intercon-
nected cells”. He demonstrated that learning new concepts is established by the building of
new specific circuits in the brain. These concepts play a crucial role in perception. Perception

48 Psychology of the visual landscape

is the experience of a meaningful image, based on sensory input. While sensations as such
are chaotic, we organise the incoming raw information with help of mental concepts (Jacobs,
2006: 124). It is of importance that we have many mental concepts – probably millions. We
have mental concepts for different categories e.g., for the tree it could be beauty, but also we
then have more particular concepts, e.g. for that specific tree in your back yard it could be
the place you were raised, and then mental concepts that relate to specific events, e.g. your
tenth birthday. Mental concepts are mutually connected. Thus, somebody’s mental concept
for a specific place might become connected with mental concepts that represent personal
memories of that place, mental concepts that denote general knowledge of that place, mental
concepts that reflect value judgements, et cetera. Thus, people gradually develop networks
of place meanings. Someone’s sense of place is the specific network of mental concepts that
is connected to his/her mental concept for a particular place – a network of mental concepts
that specifies a place as a particular place for the subject, one that is distinct from other
places. Subjects have a sense of place for a particular place as soon as specific mental concepts
or specific combinations of mental concepts for the particular place have been created in their
minds. By perceiving the particular place, or by thinking about it, the network of specific men-
tal concepts, or parts of it, may be activated, thus contributing to a specific experience of place
for the subject. Not all mental concepts that make up someone’s sense of place are experienced
during a particular experience of a particular place. Experiences and memories of a place may
be different every time for an individual subject. And sometimes hardly any of the mental
concepts that make up someone’s sense of place may be part of his experience. It is not neces-
sary at all to receive stimuli from the particular place for the mental concepts that constitute a
sense of place to be activated. One may just think about the place while being elsewhere, or a
sense of place may play a role in experience when seeing other places that resemble properties
of a particular place, even if one is not consciously aware of this association.

In human geography, the study of the meanings that people assign to places is often labeled
the concept of sense of place (Manzo, 2005; Patterson and Williams, 2005). Sense of place
– understood as the total collection of meanings that people assign to a particular place
(Jorgensen and Stedman, 2001) – is thus an overarching concept (Hay, 1998; Shamai, 1991)
that includes all meanings an individual assigns to a place. The concept of place meaning is a
broad concept that stresses any form in which a person is related to a place, for example, ways
of using a place, aesthetic values, feelings of belonging, emotional attachment, memories
of a place, or knowledge of a place. Importantly, place meanings are properties of subjects;
the meanings are assigned to places, or features of places, by people (Manzo, 2005). Some
scholars consider sense of place a holistic concept, and are therefore reluctant to distinguish
between its components or dimensions (e.g. Relph, 1976; Tuan, 1980). Others have distin-
guished sense of place dimensions, such as cognitive, affective, and behavioral or conative
meanings (Altman and Low, 1992). A compatible distinction between attachment to (emo-

49
 tional bonds with the place), dependence on (perceived behavioral advantage of a place), and
identification with (the role of the place in overall self-identity), is used to develop and test a
psychometric scale for quantitative measurements of sense of place (Jorgensen and Stedman,
2001, 2006). These dimensions are based on an abstract theoretical distinction that goes
back to Plato (Ajzen, 2001), who argued that man has three basic psychological faculties, viz.
knowing (cognitive domain), feeling (affective domain), and willing (conative domain). In a
similar vein, the two components of place dependence and place identity were measured in
a psychometric approach to place attachment (Williams and Vaske, 2003). Jacobs and Buijs
(2010) adopted a different approach to reveal various dimensions of sense of place. Instead
of a theoretically determined categorisation, they formulated dimensions on the basis of an
open, in-depth account of people’s place meanings as elicited in two studies. Five categories
of abstract place meanings emerged from the data-driven analysis: beauty (place meanings
related to aesthetic judgments), functionality (place meanings that express ways of using the
landscape), attachment (place meanings that convey belonging relations between subjects
and the place), biodiversity (place meanings pertaining to species and nature), and risk (place
meanings that articulate worries about current or expected problems). These categories of
abstract place meanings, that considerably overlap with categories revealed by other studies
(e.g. Tunstall et al., 2000; Davenport and Anderson, 2005), represent aspects of place that
stand out to people.

Apart from individually developed place meanings that guide the way people perceive partic-
ular landscapes, individual variation in landscape perception can also result from differences
in personality traits. While the effects of personality traits are not yet extensively studied, van
den Berg and Winsum-Westra (2010) have demonstrated that a personal need for structure
is positively correlated with the perceived beauty of manicured allotment gardens, and nega-
tively with the perceived beauty of wild allotment gardens.

2.5 APPLICABILITY TO GIS SUPPORT SYSTEMS

The division into biological, cultural and individual factors is not only useful to appreciate
various bodies of scientific knowledge about the psychology of the landscape, but is also a
good basis to discuss GIS based instruments for landscape policy, planning and design. Note
that, related to the subject of this chapter only GIS systems that somehow incorporate psy-
chological values pertaining to the visual landscape will be discussed here. Theoretically,
we can divide all planning support mindscape inclusive GIS systems into two types: closed
systems, which have a set of fi xed values that represent characteristics of mindscape, and
open systems, in which values that represent mindscape properties can be moderated by the
users of the system. The GIS-based landscape appreciation model (GLAM) that is presented

50 Psychology of the visual landscape

in chapter six of this book is an example of a closed system. In this model, fi xed values (based
on empirical studies), that express average landscape appreciation by the Dutch public, are
assigned to landscape attributes that are represented in GIS databases. Closed models like
GLAM can be useful for landscape policy and eventually for large scale landscape planning.
When the values that represent appreciation are fi xed, it is possible to produce estimates
of landscape appreciation without actually measuring it in each and every different place.
These estimates can be used to monitor landscape changes in landscape appreciation over
time (based on comparing two GIS datasets that represent the physical landscape at differ-
ent points in time). Thus, national policy makers can for example learn whether their efforts
are successful in terms of landscape attractiveness. In large scale planning contexts (e.g. the
Ecological Main Structure in the Netherlands), planners might estimate attractiveness based
on GIS data that represent the future situation, and thus perform ex ante evaluation, using a
closed mindscape inclusive GIS instrument like GLAM.

Of course, a closed mindscape inclusive GIS instrument faces constraints by necessity. Be-
cause the values are fixed, only values that reflect landscape preferences that are pretty
similar in most people are suitable. Thus, only landscape preferences that are manifestations
of either biological factors (more or less the same in all individuals) or high-level (e.g. on the
scale of a nation) cultural factors (more or less the same amongst the inhabitants of a country)
are useful. Landscape preferences that are based on lower level cultural factors (e.g. local
communities), or individual factors cannot be catered for by closed systems, since these pref-
erences would vary across small groups or individuals and thus not be feasible to be expressed
as average values. As a consequence, closed systems are not useful for planning and designing
intermediate or small-scale local spatial interventions, since differences across groups of peo-
ple and individuals are often at stake.

In those situations, an open GIS system that can incorporate mindscape characteristics could
support planning and design. In an open system, different stakeholders could express their
unique special place meanings, bonds with landscape features, or landscape preferences,
and assign those mental dispositions as values to specific physical landscape attributes repre-
sented in GIS databases. Since an open system is flexible with respect to assigning values to
physical landscape attributes it can cater for different groups of people with different opinions
and preferences. Such a system could be used in collaborative planning exercises, for example
to get a mutual understanding of the consequences of various future scenarios for the mind-
scapes of different people who are affected, and thus looking for options that most people
would be able to agree with.

51
 2.6 CO N C LU S I O N

The psychology of landscape – the way the landscape is perceived, experienced and appreci-
ated by the subject – is studied by several scientific disciplines, even by disciplines that do no
primarily focus on the individual mind, but on culturally shared meanings or images. The
preceding sections presented a short overview, in which some Dutch contributions are em-
phasised. The Dutch contributions together do not form a separate approach that is distinctive
from the international literature. Various Dutch contributions stress different aspects of land-
scape perception, without being mutually connected by a shared theoretical framework.
This reflects the study of the psychology of landscape in general, that is fragmented and dis-
persed across disciplines. A generic body of theoretical and empirical insights that is gener-
ally accepted has not emerged. Rather, there is an abundance of theories, each carrying little
explanatory weight, and cross-disciplinary debate is rare. This probably reflects the complex
underpinnings of perceiving landscapes, in which numerous factors play a role. Nonetheless,
some insights are shared by most scholars involved in landscape perception research. First,
psychological responses to landscape are partly innate. Convergent results indicate we have
innate preferences for half-open landscapes, and for landscapes with vegetation and water.
There are, however, different specific explanations that stress why we are evolutionarily in-
clined to respond to landscapes in certain ways: the arousal theory, preference matrix, and
prospect-refuge theory being examples. Empirical studies have not yet sorted out convinc-
ingly which of the specific evolutionary explanations is most adequate. Second, learning, both
on the cultural or individual level, plays a role in psychological responses to landscape as
well. Even those who address biological factors often emphasise that learning influences land-
scape perception. Which factors are most important, depends on context. In psychological
responses toward landscape scenes not encountered before, biological factors probably play a
predominant role. For familiar scenes, cultural and individual factors, which result in assign-
ing meaning to landscapes, come to the fore.

52 Psychology of the visual landscape

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