Rated preference and complexity for natural and urban visual material

Abstract

In order (1) to study the relationship between complexity and preference for slides of the physical environment and (2) to test the hypothesis that the content of slides (in particular, whether nature or urban) will influence preference, independent of the rated complexity, 88 Ss were asked to rate 56 slides, both for preference and for complexity. Based on dimensional analyses, a nature and an urban dimension were identified. Three major results were obtained: (1) Nature scenes were greatly preferred to urban scenes (p