tailieunhanh - Aesthetic preferences and the attribution of meaning: Environmental categorization processes in the evaluation of urban scenes

We do not always need science to teach us what happens on landscapes, though science enriches that story. All who have had to cope in the world knew this, natives of landscapes wherever. Science brings insight into continu- ing organic, ecological, and evolutionary unity, dynamic genesis; but such unity may also have already been realized by pre-scientific peoples in their inhabiting of a landscape. Science can engage us with landscapes too object- ively, academically, disinterestedly; landscapes are also known in participant encounter, by being embodied in them. . | INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY 2005 40 1 19-26 Aesthetic preferences and the attribution of meaning Environmental categorization processes in the evaluation of urban scenes Ma Paz Galindo Ma Carmen Hidalgo Universidad de Sevilla Spain Unỉversỉdad de Malaga Spain n the context of research into scenic quality the purpose of the present paper is to establish categories of urban landscapes on the basis of users aesthetic judgements. It also explores the role that the restorative capacity of a place in terms of the attentional restoration theory ART together with a set of aesthetic attributes may play in more or less valued places in a city. A total of 132 residents from Malaga Spain were chosen with the city providing the physical framework for environmental reference. A questionnaire designed for easy self-administration by subjects was used to collect information. Subjects were asked to identify three places in Malaga that they considered to be most attractive and three that they considered least attractive. Participants were asked to evaluate both the restorative properties in terms of the ART and the extent to which their first choice displayed certain environmental characteristics. Participants expressed a clear aesthetic preference for recreational sites for leisure walking as well as those closely linked to the city s historical-cultural identity. The research also identified other categories of visual settings that could be used as a focal point around which to centre future samples of scenes in a city context. Finally the results obtained from the characterization of more and less attractive places from the variables used in this study shed light on the dimensions of underlying meaning that individuals use to categorize their environment and reinforce the idea that environmental aesthetics seem to play an important role in individuals general well-being. TA ans le cadre de la recherche sur la qualite scenique le but du present article est d etablir des .