First: ‘‘Think, for a while, about the city of Ma´laga itself; its streets, neighbourhoods, squares and open spaces of any type large and small, attractive or unattractive…; think about
Trang 1Aesthetic preferences and the attribution of meaning: Environmental categorization processes in the
evaluation of urban scenes
Ma-Paz Galindo Universidad de Sevilla, Spain
Ma-Carmen Hidalgo Universidad de Ma´laga, Spain
I 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 Ma´laga (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 Ma´laga 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
D ans le cadre de la recherche sur la qualite´ sce´nique, le but du pre´sent article est d’e´tablir des cate´gories de paysages urbains sur la base des jugements esthe´tiques des utilisateurs Il explore aussi le roˆle joue´ par la capacite´ de restauration d’un lieu—selon la The´orie de restauration attentionnelle (ART)—conjointement a` un ensemble d’attributs esthe´tiques, sur les endroits plus ou moins appre´cie´s dans une ville Au total, 132 re´sidents de Malaga (Espagne) furent se´lectionne´s, en conside´rant que cette ville offre un cadre physique
de re´fe´rence environnemental Un questionnaire auto-administre´ fut comple´te´ par les participants Ces derniers devaient identifier trois lieux a` Malaga qu’ils conside´raient comme plus attrayants et trois autres qu’ils trouvaient moins attrayants Ils devaient e´galement e´valuer les proprie´te´s de restauration—selon l’ART—et l’ampleur avec laquelle leur premier choix concordait avec certaines caracte´ristiques environnementales Les participants ont exprime´ une pre´fe´rence claire pour les aires re´cre´atives de loisirs et de marche ainsi que pour les lieux associe´s a` l’identite´ historique et culturelle de la ville La recherche a aussi permis d’identifier d’autres cate´gories d’aspects visuels qui pourraient eˆtre utilise´es comme e´le´ments a` partir desquels seront cre´e´es les sce`nes futures en contexte urbain Finalement, les re´sultats obtenus a` partir de la cate´gorisation des endroits plus ou moins attrayants, a` partir des variables utilise´es dans cette e´tude, nous e´clairent sur les dimensions des significations sous-jacentes utilise´es par les individus pour cate´goriser leur environnement Ceci renforce l’ide´e que les aspects esthe´tiques environnementaux joueraient un roˆle important dans le bien-eˆtre ge´ne´ral des individus
E n el contexto de los estudios sobre calidad esce´nica, el presente trabajo se ha disen˜ado con el objetivo de determinar categorı´as de paisajes urbanos a partir de los juicios este´ticos de sus usuarios Adicionalmente,
se ha explorado el papel que la capacidad restauradora de un lugar—en te´rminos de la Teorı´a de la Restauracio´n Atencional—ası´ como un conjunto de atributos este´ticos pueden desempen˜ar en los lugares ma´s y menos valorados de una ciudad Para ello se selecciono´ un total de 132 residentes en Ma´laga (Espan˜a) ası´ como el contexto fı´sico de dicha ciudad como marco de referencia ambiental del estudio Como instrumento de recogida
#2005 International Union of Psychological Science http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/pp/00207594.html DOI: 10.1080/00207590444000104
Universidad de Sevilla, C/Camilo Jose´ Cela s/n, 41018, Sevilla, , Spain (E-mail: mpaz@us.es).).
Trang 2de informacio´n se utilizo´ un cuestionario disen˜ado para ser autoadministrado fa´cilmente por los participantes La tarea que se les solicito´ a e´stos fue la de identificar los tres lugares de Ma´laga que les resultaran visualmente ma´s atractivos, ası´ como los tres que consideraran ma´s feos Asimismo se les pidio´, en relacio´n al lugar identificado en
la primera posicio´n, que evaluaran tanto sus propiedades restauradoras—en te´rminos de la ART—como el grado
en que exhibı´a determinadas caracterı´sticas ambientales Los participantes expresaron una clara preferencia este´tica por los lugares recreativos de ocio/paseo, ası´ como aquellos estrechamente vinculados con el desarrollo histo´rico—cultural de la ciudad Asimismo, se han identificado otras categorı´as de entornos visuales que pueden servir como eje en torno al que articular futuros muestreos de escenas en el contexto de la ciudad Finalmente, los resultados obtenidos a partir de la caracterizacio´n de los lugares mas y menos atractivos—en las variables objeto
de este estudio—ofrecen luz sobre las dimensiones de significado subyacentes a trave´s de la que los individuos categorizan su ambiente y apoyan la consideracio´n de la importante funcio´n que la este´tica ambiental parece desempen˜ar en el bienestar general de los individuos
In the field of research into environmental
aesthetics, preference studies have attempted to
understand the scenic quality of a certain place by
analysing the responses to it given by different
groups of ‘‘nonexpert’’ participants These
responses have generally been used as a unit of
analysis for generating predictive models of visual
quality (psychophysical models) or frameworks for
explaining aesthetic experience (cognitive models)
In research into cognitive models, some studies
have used preference judgements as a unit of
judgement to delimit landscape categories that are
important for users The results of such studies
show that one of the underlying dimensions of
perceptual differentiation is related to the ‘‘extent
of human intervention’’; in other words, the extent
to which the evaluated scene contains buildings
and what the perceived equilibrium is between
human and natural elements On this point, for
example, a clear distinction in the aesthetic
judgements of several groups of subjects has been
established between natural and urban contexts,
especially when the latter lack natural elements
such as water and vegetation (Herzog, 1985;
Kaplan, 1987; Kaplan & Kaplan, 1989; Peron,
Purcell, Staats, Falchero, & Lamb, 1998; Purcell,
Lamb, Peron, & Falchero, 1994) Similarly, when
the study has included a large variety of scenes,
certain attributes of spatial configuration (such as
the extent of openness and spatial definition, the
normal function and/or use of the place, and the
age of the site and its upkeep) form additional
bases for the perceptive-evaluative categorization
made by nonexpert individuals (for a review of
these studies see Kaplan & Kaplan, 1989)
Most studies attempting to delimit landscape
categories have used photographs of natural
scenes that are unfamiliar to participants, having
been selected by researchers using different
cri-teria This procedure of stimuli selection and
presentation requires the fragmentation of the
molar environment (as represented in subjects’
memory systems) and depends on the criteria of individual experts Furthermore, very little of the research mentioned above evaluated urban stimuli,
or the role that familiarity or recognition of visualized scenes may play in processes of aesthetic evaluation The development of evaluation proce-dures aimed at identifying categories of known and/or familiar places for participants, that meet their own selection criteria, is an area that has received little attention and could also provide important information in terms of optimizing processes of environmental sampling
To overcome some of the above-mentioned limitations, an evaluation procedure was designed
in a previous study to identify urban scene categories that were known and/or familiar to nonexpert participants, using selection criteria established by the subjects themselves (Galindo, 1994) A random sample of residents from the city
of Seville was asked to identify three public landscapes in the city that they found most attractive in visual terms The analysis of their responses allowed us to establish four main perceptive-evaluative categories for urban scenes that were important for users: (1) historical-cultural landscapes, (2) leisure areas, (3) recrea-tional landscapes, and (4) housing areas These categories were configured, however, from the analysis of a single range of aesthetic preferences (‘‘attractive’’ places) and were not characterized according to any other variable by the subjects interviewed Exploring the generality of such a categorization in other geographical scenes, incor-porating the analysis of places considered ‘‘unat-tractive,’’ is one of the aims of the present study It
is based on the assumption that identifying more
or less ‘‘attractive’’ landscapes of one specific molar setting provides an opportunity not only for registering its main scenic resources (descriptive objective), but also for clarifying which implicit criteria of visual quality are used by nonexpert individuals (explanatory objective)
Trang 3Regarding the (implicit) standards of scenic
beauty, Nasar proposed (1994, 1997) two types of
variable in the context of urban design: Attributes
of formal aesthetics and attributes of symbolic
aesthetics Among the former, the authors highlight
‘‘openness’’ (and/or spaciousness), ‘‘mystery,’’
‘‘complexity’’ (both related to visual diversity),
and ‘‘order’’ (or congruence between the elements
that make up the scene) In relation to the symbolic
aesthetic attributes, Nasar mentions variables of
content such as ‘‘vegetation,’’ ‘‘upkeep,’’ ‘‘style,’’
and ‘‘perceived use.’’ Results from a substantial
number of empirical studies have demonstrated the
role that these characteristics play in aesthetic
evaluation responses Some of the variables
men-tioned by Nasar have also been adopted in various
evolutionist theoretical proposals that have linked
aesthetic evaluation responses to certain scenes with
the important psychological benefits likely to arise
from contact with these scenes (Appleton, 1987;
Kaplan 1987; Ulrich, 1983) In this context, the
Attentional Restoration Theory (ART; Kaplan,
1995; Kaplan & Kaplan, 1989) was developed
around the idea that certain settings may reduce
tiredness caused by directed attention, thus
enabling the re-establishment of certain cognitive
abilities Other research has focused on the
construction of an instrument to measure the
restorative capacity of a specific place—in terms
of the ART—(Hartig, Korpela, Evans, & Ga¨rling,
1997) as well as analysing the role that this capacity
may play in the selection of ‘‘favourite’’ places
(Korpela & Hartig, 1996; Korpela, Hartig, Kaiser,
& Fuhrer, 2001) or in aesthetic judgements (Peron,
Berto, & Purcell, 2002; Purcell, Peron, & Berto,
2001) Although, in this context, the existence of
relationships between the restorative capacity of
natural surroundings and their aesthetic evaluation
has been documented in some studies, there is very
little actual evidence of the existence of this
association in urban settings
Within this framework, the overview guiding
the design of this study is establishing categories of
urban places from the perspective of their daily
observers, as well as attempting to identify some of
the important dimensions of meaning that underlie
aesthetic preferences Based on this overview, we
have drawn up the following specific objectives:
1 Establish categories of more and less valued
urban places and analyse any
similarities/differ-ences existing on the aesthetic value assigned (as
well as their frequency of use)
2 Determine the role that the restorative capacity
of a place (in terms of the ART) may exercise in its
aesthetic evaluation
3 Characterize the more and less valued places within the set of aesthetic attributes (sensorial and semiotic) delimited in Nasar’s proposal
4 Explore the relationships between the restora-tive capacity of a place and the aesthetic attributes selected in this study
METHOD Participants
The sample consisted of 132 university students (72 women and 59 men, average age 26 years), all residents of Ma´laga city They were selected from
a larger sample of 202 subjects All participants complied with the following criteria: (1) they had been born in Ma´laga or had been living there for a minimum of 9 years; (2) they expressed a strong sense of belonging to the city This information was collected from two questions in the ques-tionnaire described in the following section Procedure
A questionnaire was designed to be easily self-administered by the participants themselves They were asked to do the following First: ‘‘Think, for
a while, about the city of Ma´laga itself; its streets, neighbourhoods, squares and open spaces of any type (large and small, attractive or unattractive…); think about all the places you have been to or seen.’’ After this, using the procedure followed in Galindo’s (1994) study, participants were asked to identify the three places in the city that were of greatest visual interest to them (open question), and state how often (in a question with closed categories) they went to or passed by those places The rest of the questions referred exclusively to the place that was their first choice; participants were asked to complete the Spanish version (Hidalgo & Herna´ndez, 2001) of the Perceived Restorativeness Scale (Korpela & Hartig, 1996), and a battery of
11 questions related to the (sensorial and semiotic) aesthetic attributes identified by Nasar (1994, 1997) and those featured in the research by Galindo (1994) Specifically, participants were asked for their opinion about the extent to which their first choice had the following characteristics: (1) vegetation; (2) visual diversity/richness; (3) harmony/congruence between its different ele-ments; (4) openness and/or spaciousness; (5) luminosity; (6) a historic place or representative
of the city; (7) cleanliness; (8) maintenance/upkeep; (9) place for leisure activities; (10) meeting place;
Trang 4(11) a novel place Participants had to assess each
characteristic on a 5-point scale with values
ranging from 1 (not at all) to 5 (a lot) Participants
were also asked to state how often they visited or
walked by their first choice Once they had
completed the ‘‘attractive’’ places section,
partici-pants were asked to place themselves on the other
side of the aesthetic spectrum and name, in their
opinion, the three ‘‘most unattractive’’ places in
the city These places were assessed with the same
variables as the ‘‘most attractive’’ places Finally,
the questionnaire included a battery of questions
related to sample identification data considered
to be variables of interest in the study (gender,
age, length of residence in the city, level of
familiarity with the city, and the extent to which
they identify with the city)
RESULTS
‘‘Most attractive’’ and ‘‘most unattractive’’
places in the city: General categorization
and frequency of use
First, all the first choices were recorded and
classified depending on the type or category of
place to which they belonged As a provisional
instrument, the general system of categories
obtained in Galindo’s (1994) study was used
The analysis of the characteristics of the spatial
and functional configuration of the places
men-tioned by the participants yielded a total of five
categories, three of which were the same as in
Galindo’s (1994) study: ‘‘cultural-historical
places,’’ ‘‘recreational places for leisure and/or
walking,’’ and ‘‘housing areas.’’ However, our
findings suggested that two new categories not
considered in the aforementioned study should be
introduced: ‘‘panoramic places’’ and ‘‘industrial
places,’’ while the category ‘‘places for having fun’’
was excluded Table 1 shows the representativeness
of each of the categories established in the list of
the most attractive and unattractive places in the city (those in the first place), from the percentage
of responses in each category
The data shown in Table 1 reflect a notable difference in the percentages of responses asso-ciated with each of the categories identified depending on the aesthetic label (‘‘attractive-unattractive’’) The ‘‘attractive’’ places were mainly grouped around the following categories:
‘‘recreational places’’ (mentioned by 38.75% of participants), ‘‘historical-cultural places’’ (men-tioned by 35.65%), and ‘‘panoramic places’’ (mentioned by 21.7%) On the other hand, these three categories are scarce or even nonexistent in the unattractive places, with the most numerous being ‘‘housing areas’’ (73.17%), mostly working-class housing estates, followed by ‘‘industrial areas’’ (8.13%)
If we consider the specific places that form the categories themselves, rather than the categories as such, we find that 28 different places were mentioned as the most attractive places, while there were 45 most unattractive places In aesthetic terms, the most highly appreciated place in the city was the Gibralfaro Castle (n526, 19.7%) and, more specifically, the panoramic view of the city from the castle, which is why it was placed in the panoramic places category In second place (n517, 12.9%) came the Paseo Marı´timo (the Promenade),
a long esplanade running along the seafront which
we placed in recreational places for leisure/walking
In third and fourth position came two places closely related to the city’s history (placed in the category historical-cultural places): the Alcazaba,
an Arab fortress dating from the 11th century (n515, 11.4%), and the Cathedral, built between the 16th and 18th centuries (n514, 10.6%) The rest of the places were mentioned by less than 10%
of the sample, with 13 places being mentioned by just one participant (0.8% of the sample) As for the most unattractive places, the most mentioned was the neighbourhood of La Palmilla (n541, 30.8%), a working-class district with a high crime
TABLE 1 Frequency of most attractive and most unattractive places associated with each established category
Most attractive places
Most unattractive places
Trang 5rate The second, mentioned by 10.5% of subjects,
was another working-class area (housing area) with
a high crime rate The remaining places were
mentioned by less than 10% of participants, with
31 places being cited on just one occasion Figure 1
shows the frequency with which people visit these
places: 11.5% go to the most attractive place daily
(against 7.8% who go to the most unattractive
place); 18.3% go there once a week (11.6% go to
the most unattractive place); 14.5% go several
times a month (10.9% to the most unattractive);
24.4% go once a month (10.9% to the most
unattractive); 21.4% have not been recently
(17.8% to the most unattractive place); 8.4%
hardly ever go (31% to the most unattractive
place); and 1.5 have never gone to the most
attractive place (10.1% to the most unattractive
place) Therefore, if we look at the percentages of
accumulated answers, 68.4% of the sample go at
least once a month to the most attractive place,
while the majority (58.8%) never, or hardly ever,
go to the places considered least attractive
Characterization of the ‘‘most attractive’’
and ‘‘most unattractive’’ places on the
Perceived Restorativeness Scale
The city’s ‘‘most attractive’’ places obtain high
average scores on the Perceived Restorativeness
Scale (PRS), always over 6, in contrast to the
unattractive places whose values range from 1 to 3
on the scale (see Table 2) To check whether such
differences were statistically significant, the
aver-age scores obtained were contrasted using the
T-test analytical procedure for related samples All
the differences were statistically significant The
two types of scene differed both in general
restorativeness (129)526.42, and in fascination
(128)524.59, compatibility (128)519.79, being
away (128)518.05, coherence (129)517.87, and extent (128)517.81 (p , 0001 in all cases)
Characterization of ‘‘most attractive’’
and ‘‘most unattractive’’ places according to the sensorial and semiotic aesthetic attributes
In order to meet the third objective, we calculated the average scores obtained by the attractive and unattractive places (the first choices) for each of the aesthetic attributes analysed In addition, to check that the resulting differences were statisti-cally significant, the T-test for related samples was used As with the Restorativeness Scale, places in the city considered the most attractive obtained the highest scores in all the variables considered (see Figure 2) The analyses carried out showed that the differences were statistically significant in all cases (p , 0001): novel place (128)512.42, facilities for leisure activities (125)510.57,
Figure 1 Frequency of use of most attractive and most unattractive places
TABLE 2 Characterization of most attractive and most unattractive places on the Perceived Restorativeness Scale
Subscales (PRS)
‘‘Most attractive’’
place
‘‘Most unattractive’’ place
PRS: Perceived Restorativeness Scale Values fall on a scale from 0 to 10 where lower values indicate, for example, lower
‘‘being away.’’ Difference scores for the two types of places were statistically significant in all the subscales (p , 0001).
Trang 6presence of vegetation (129)511.03, meeting place
(128)59.97, cleanliness (129)517.22, upkeep/
maintenance (128)517.18, harmony or congruence
of scenic elements (128)519.34, visual diversity or
richness (129)525.86, luminosity (128)59.52,
his-toric or emblematic place (128)519.12, openness
and spaciousness (128)512.71
Relationship between the Perceived
Restorativeness Scale and the aesthetic
attributes
A correlation analysis was performed between the
aesthetic attributes and the scores on the Perceived
Restorativeness Scale The results are shown in
Table 3 Of the different attributes evaluated, five
correlate significantly (p , 01) with restorative
capacity: harmony, openness, luminosity,
suitabil-ity for leisure, and meeting place Of these, the last
two, along with openness, also present significant
correlations with the five subscales, although in
some cases at a lower level (p , 05) of significance (with the exception of the correlation between harmony and fascination, which is not significant)
On the other hand, it is worth pointing out that in our study the presence of vegetation, a character-istic closely related to the restorative capacity of a place, does not present a significant correlation with the total scale or with any of the factors Neither does the level of upkeep/maintenance, a variable closely associated with a preference for urban spaces, present a significant correlation with the PRS The three remaining attributes—diversity, cleanliness, and historical characteristics—present correlation values that, although low, are in some cases significant at a reliability level of 05
DISCUSSION The analysis of the characteristics of the most attractive and most unattractive places in the city
Figure 2 Average scores in the aesthetic attributes of the most attractive and unattractive places
TABLE 3 Correlations between the aesthetic attributes and the Perceived Restorativeness Scale
*p,.05 (bilateral); **p,.01 (bilateral).
Trang 7identified in the study has allowed us to establish
the existence of five broad aesthetic categories of
urban scenes: (1) recreational places for leisure/
walking, (2) historical/cultural places, (3) places
with panoramic views, (4) housing areas, and (5)
industrial areas The first three categories
men-tioned form 96% of the visually most attractive
places; the last two groupings form the majority of
the settings considered most unattractive Three
categories (historical-cultural places, recreational
places, and housing areas) agree with the
char-acterization made in Galindo’s (1994) study, which
was used as a provisional instrument in this study
In our opinion, this suggests that the function and
historical value (cultural representativity) of a
particular scene—in other words, its social
leg-ibility, to use Stokols and Shumaker’s (1981)
term—seem to constitute two important
dimen-sions providing the basis for the establishment of
aesthetic categories that are important in urban
contexts Although the function of a scene has
been an important selection criterion in urban
landscape preference studies that have
incorpo-rated photographic stimuli, the historical-cultural
dimension has been rather neglected The
impor-tance that this dimension acquires when
evalua-tion procedures are developed that facilitate its
appearance seems to confirm the need for its
inclusion in contextualized analyses in scenes that
are familiar to and/or known by subjects
The groupings labelled ‘‘places with panoramic
views’’ and ‘‘industrial areas’’ provide two
cate-gories not included in Galindo’s (1994) previous
study The first category groups together 21.7% of
the scenes identified as the most attractive and
includes the place that was named in first position
by the greatest number of subjects, the Gibralfaro
Castle This place presents a set of physical
characteristics that help explain its high scenic
evaluation It is an Arab fortress dating from the
14th century, which was built into the side of a
mountain that was originally beyond the city
walls The site was chosen for its strategic position,
overlooking the city and the sea beyond Due to
growth and expansion it has now become part of
the city, although certain planning laws have
limited urban development in its immediate
surroundings It has therefore managed to
pre-serve a significant amount of the surrounding
vegetation and is an important transit point
between the city and nature The visual
config-uration characteristics of this place tie in directly
with Appleton’s (1975) prospect-refuge theory,
according to which the qualities of the setting that
make it aesthetically preferred allow one to see
without being seen (refuge) and provide a wide
viewing area (prospect) The settings that possess these characteristics—in other words, that allow the individual to observe the scene from a safe viewing point and with a wide perspective (open places)—will also be the aesthetically preferred settings The last of the categories, the ‘‘industrial areas,’’ represents the second most frequently selected unattractive places, which, together with the role this variable has in studies of environ-mental preference, confirms it as a category to be taken into account in future urban landscape samples
The differences found between this study and Galindo’s (1994) may be due to the different characteristics of the geographical settings evalu-ated The city of Seville lacks public places that could be clearly identified as panoramic places, and in Ma´laga the ‘‘places for having fun,’’ a category in the Seville study that does not appear
in this one, are spread throughout the city and not concentrated in one geographical area The
‘‘industrial areas’’ category is one that appeared
in the responses to the most unattractive areas, a quality that was not evaluated in the first study In any case, the categories that have emerged in the present study should be confirmed in other geographical settings and using other nonexplora-tory procedures; an aim that we consider to be of great importance for research in this field Another of the goals of the present study was to explore the role that the restorative capacity of a place, in terms of the Attentional Restoration Theory, may play in its aesthetic evaluation To do this, subjects evaluated two places (the ones considered most attractive and most unattractive) using the Spanish version (Hidalgo & Herna´ndez, 2001) of the Perceived Restorativeness Scale (Korpela & Hartig, 1996) The results obtained show that the restorative capacity of a place seems
to be a characteristic dimension of those places considered to be attractive These places obtained
a high score both on the general scale (average 6.66) and on the five subscales, with values ranging from 6.32 in the ‘‘compatibility’’ factor and 7.00 in the ‘‘extent’’ factor (see Table 2) These results support those obtained by Korpela and Hartig (1996) and Korpela et al (2001), in which they analysed the differences in restorative capacity between favourite places and hostile/disagreeable places In the latter study, the greatest differences between the two types of place were recorded in the subscales of evasion and compatibility However, the results of our research—given the objective of characterizing the main scenic resources of a city—show that the main differences between attractive and unattractive places seem to
Trang 8lie in the characteristics grouped in the fascination
subscale This subscale includes aspects related to
the quantity of information available in the
evaluated place and is closely related to the
psychological exploration process considered to
be one of the basic cognitive requirements linked
to environmental aesthetics in Attentional
Resto-ration Theory (see, for example, Kaplan & Kaplan,
1989) In short, the results mentioned support the
suggestions of recent studies (Peron et al., 2002;
Purcell et al., 2001) that the restorative capacity
of a specific place may constitute one of the
implicit scenic quality criteria used by subjects in
their aesthetic judgements
Furthermore, the scores that the attractive and
unattractive places obtained regarding the
aes-thetic attributes included in this study demonstrate
their suitability in the study of aesthetic
prefer-ences, and therefore suggest that these attributes,
together with restorative capacity, constitute
important criteria for determining scenic quality
The relation that could be established between
both types of criteria raises a theoretical and
empirical issue that could be dealt with in future
studies The results of the correlation analyses
between the score obtained in the PRS and these
attributes—developed in an exploratory manner in
this work—suggest that restorative places tend to
be open, luminous, and coherent, and are places
for leisure and for meeting people It is, however,
surprising that the presence of vegetation, a
characteristic closely related to the restorative
capacity of a place in other research, did not have
a significant relationship with the factors on the
Perceived Restorativeness Scale Given the
exploratory nature of these analyses, it may be
premature to venture an explanation The
possi-bility does exist, however, that other aesthetic
attributes, such as those mentioned here, might
have a greater influence on the evaluation of a
place as a restorative setting Future research
along these lines will clarify this hypothesis
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