LOWENTHAL, DAVID, Research in Environmental Perception and Behavior: Perspectives on Current Problems

The question of how people perceive and evaluate their physical environment is usually answered in the context of culture and within the theoretical frame of functionalism. However, two other approaches, structuralism and existentialism, throw additional light on environmental perception from opposite standpoints. The structuralist approach is concerned with human thought patterns that transcend cultural differences: for instance, all people tend to break the continua