Perception and recall of aesthetic quality in a familiar environment

SummaryTwo experiments were conducted to investigate judgments of aesthetic quality in a familiar environment. In Experiment 1 students toured a college campus and the adjacent commercial district and made magnitude estimates of the composite, visual, and auditory aesthetic quality at various locations. Subjects in Experiment 2 made the same set of judgments from memory; i.e., using brief descriptions of the locations as stimuli. Results from the two experiments were highly correlated, suggesting that subjects have detailed mental representations of their immediate aesthetic environment. In both experiments the relative ratings of locations were stable across the seasons of the year. Composite and visual ratings were practically identical, whereas auditory ratings tended to be lower.

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