Landscape Perception

Since its inception, the Journal of Environmental Psychology has demonstrated its pre-eminence through publishing original, innovative papers. By bringing them together in one volume, ready access has been provided to the first-hand accounts of a range of explorations that are central to the growth and development of environmental psychology itself. This collection of papers from the journal provides a convenient, first-hand account of the studies that environmental psychologists have conducted in clearing the ground for explorations of the experience of landscapes. It encapsulates the actual studies that form the basis of this rapidly growing area of environmental psychology, thus providing new students and experienced researchers with direct examples of the actual studies that have been conducted. For psychologists schooled in laboratory research the natural landscape may seem to be the last frontier that still has to be conquered. But many other disciplines have been at home in these wilder regions for a number of years. Those geographers, landscape architects, biological ecologists, and others will find the present volume a helpful introduction to the opening stages of psychological forays into areas that they may possibly consider their own inviolable domain. The initial papers in a new area of study are often crucial to the development of that field. By bringing the original papers together in one volume it is possible to gain a detailed awareness of the contributions these studies are making to our understanding of the human significance of nature.