Aesthetics and the Environment

This article presents a framework for understanding aesthetic experience, with special reference to the natural environment. The framework entails 2 broad perspectives. First, from a functional perspective, aesthetic experiences are analyzed in terms of biological, sociocultural, and psychological systems of behavior; succinctly stated, objects are experienced aesthetically if they activate cognitive representations of response patterns that do or did contribute to the survival or enhancement of the species, society, or the self. Second, from the perspective of mediating mechanisms, the cognitive processes that enable aesthetic experiences are examined. The mechanisms discussed range from simple sensory processes to the activation and transformation of complex schemas. To the extent that cognitive representations of behavioral systems are flexible and subject to elaboration and refinement, aesthetic experience is a creative, skillful act.

[1]  Rudolf Arnheim,et al.  New Essays on the Psychology of Art , 2023 .

[2]  T. Lubart,et al.  Emotion, Metaphor, and the Creative Process , 1997 .

[3]  Jack L. Nasar,et al.  Landscapes of Fear and Stress , 1997 .

[4]  B. Driver.  Nature and the Human Spirit: Toward an Expanded Land Management Ethic , 1996 .

[5]  A. Ewert.  Natural Resource Management: The Human Dimension , 1996 .

[6]  Geoffrey L. Collier,et al.  Affective synesthesia: Extracting emotion space from simple perceptual stimuli , 1996 .

[7]  Shigeko Takahashi,et al.  Aesthetic properties of pictorial perception. , 1995, Psychological review.

[8]  G. Loewenstein.  The psychology of curiosity: A review and reinterpretation. , 1994 .

[9]  J. Langlois,et al.  What Is Average and What Is Not Average About Attractive Faces? , 1994 .

[10]  L. F. Barrett,et al.  Handbook of Emotions , 1993 .

[11]  R. C. Fraley,et al.  Attachment and Loss , 2018 .

[12]  Paul Greenhalgh,et al.  The Empathy Principle: Towards a model for the Psychology of Art , 1992 .

[13]  Frans Boselie,et al.  Against Prototypicality as a Central Concept in Aesthetics , 1991 .

[14]  Paul H. Gobster,et al.  The Nature and Ecology of Aesthetic Experiences in the Landscape , 1990, Landscape Journal.

[15]  J. Langlois,et al.  Attractive Faces Are Only Average , 1990 .

[16]  C. Martindale,et al.  Aesthetic preference: Anomalous findings for Berlyne's psychobiological theory. , 1990 .

[17]  R. Kaplan,et al.  The Experience of Nature: A Psychological Perspective , 1989 .

[18]  Colin Martindale,et al.  Priming, prototypicality, and preference. , 1988 .

[19]  Frank H. Farley,et al.  The Foundations of Aesthetics, Art, and Art Education , 1988 .

[20]  R. Millward,et al.  The Experience of Landscape , 1988 .

[21]  Susan S. Hendrick,et al.  The Psychology of Love , 1988 .

[22]  J. Maquet.  The Aesthetic Experience: An Anthropologist Looks at the Visual Arts , 1986 .

[23]  I. Altman,et al.  Culture and Environment , 1984 .

[24]  R. Ulrich.  View through a window may influence recovery from surgery. , 1984, Science.

[25]  A. Carlson.  On the possibility of quantifying scenic beauty — A response to Ribe , 1984 .

[26]  T. Whitfield,et al.  Predicting preference for familiar, everyday objects: An experimental confrontation between two theories of aesthetic behaviour , 1983 .

[27]  W. James.  The principles of psychology , 1983 .

[28]  A. Rapoport.  The Meaning of the Built Environment: A Nonverbal Communication Approach , 1982 .

[29]  Robert G. Ribe,et al.  On the possibility of quantifying scenic beauty — A response , 1982 .

[30]  J. Falk,et al.  Development of Visual Preference for Natural Environments , 1982 .

[31]  J. Lockard.  The Evolution of Human Social Behavior , 1980 .

[32]  R. Ulrich.  Visual landscapes and psychological well‐being , 1979 .

[33]  Z. J. Ulehla,et al.  Psychological Reward Values Associated with Wilderness Use , 1977 .

[34]  Amos Rapoport,et al.  The Mutual Interaction of People and Their Built Environment. , 1976 .

[35]  J. Duncan.  Landscape and the Communication of Social Identity , 1976 .

[36]  J. Kemp,et al.  The World As Will And Idea , 1975 .

[37]  D. Berlyne.  Aesthetics and psychobiology , 1975 .

[38]  D. Berlyne.  Studies in the New Experimental Aesthetics: Steps Toward an Objective Psychology of Aesthetic Appreciation, , 1974 .

[39]  S. Kreitler,et al.  Psychology of the arts , 1974 .

[40]  K. Lorenz,et al.  Part and parcel in animal and human societies (1950) A methodological discussion , 1971 .

[41]  Clarence J. Glacken,et al.  Traces on the Rhodian Shore: Nature and Culture in Western Thought from Ancient Times to the End of the Eighteenth Century , 1968 .

[42]  G. J. Train,et al.  Three Essays on The Theory of Sexuality , 1966 .

[43]  Vincent A. Tomas.  Creativity in the arts , 1964 .

[44]  K. Lashley,et al.  Instinctive Behavior: The Development of Modern Concept , 1957 .

[45]  C. Rogers.  Becoming a person , 1956 .

[46]  Aldous Huxley,et al.  The Perennial Philosophy , 1945 .

[47]  C. J. Ducasse,et al.  The Philosophy of Art , 1930 .

[48]  G. Field.  The Philosophy of Plato , 1928, The Classical Review.

[49]  J. Stainer,et al.  The Emotions , 1922, Nature.

[50]  P. Pye-Smith.  The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex , 1871, Nature.

[51]  Robert A Emmons,et al.  Goal orientation and emotional well-being: Linking goals and affect through the self. , 1996 .

[52]  Allen Parducci,et al.  Happiness, Pleasure, and Judgment: The Contextual Theory and Its Applications , 1995 .

[53]  Thomas H. Leahey,et al.  Emerging Visions of the Aesthetic Process: Psychology, Semiology, and Philosophy. , 1994 .

[54]  R. Harré,et al.  The Discursive Mind , 1994 .

[55]  Y. Tuan.  Landscape, natural beauty and the arts: Desert and ice: ambivalent aesthetics , 1993 .

[56]  E. Wilson,et al.  The biophilia hypothesis , 1993 .

[57]  A. Berleant.  Landscape, natural beauty and the arts: The aesthetics of art and nature , 1993 .

[58]  Ivan Gaskell,et al.  Landscape, natural beauty and the arts , 1993 .

[59]  Elizabeth Brabec,et al.  ICONS AND ALIENS: LAW, AESTHETICS, AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE , 1992, Landscape Journal.

[60]  Gerald C. Cupchik,et al.  From perception to production: A multilevel analysis of the aesthetic process. , 1992 .

[61]  G. Orians,et al.  Evolved responses to landscapes. , 1992 .

[62]  L. Cosmides,et al.  The Adapted mind : evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture , 1992 .

[63]  L. N. Evernden.  The social creation of nature , 1992 .

[64]  Setha M. Low,et al.  Symbolic Ties That Bind , 1992 .

[65]  D. Relf,et al.  The role of horticulture in human well-being and social development. , 1992 .

[66]  R. Dienstbier,et al.  Perspectives on motivation , 1991 .

[67]  Jay Appleton,et al.  The Symbolism of Habitat: An Interpretation of Landscape in the Arts , 1990 .

[68]  Anita P. Barbee,et al.  What do women want? Facialmetric assessment of multiple motives in the perception of male facial physical attractiveness. , 1990, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[69]  E. Deci,et al.  A motivational approach to self: integration in personality. , 1990, Nebraska Symposium on Motivation. Nebraska Symposium on Motivation.

[70]  Nancy L. Stein,et al.  Psychological and Biological Approaches To Emotion , 1990 .

[71]  C. Hazan,et al.  Love as attachment. , 1988 .

[72]  Daniel Kolb.  Critique of Judgment , 1988 .

[73]  Jack L. Nasar,et al.  Environmental aesthetics : theory, research, and applications , 1988 .

[74]  J. Nasar,et al.  Environmental aesthetics: The emotional quality of scenes and observation points: a look at prospect and refuge , 1988 .

[75]  A. Maslow.  Motivation and personality, 3rd ed. , 1987 .

[76]  T. Diffey.  The Idea of Aesthetic Experience , 1986 .

[77]  R. Ulrich.  Human responses to vegetation and landscapes , 1986 .

[78]  H. Osborne.  What Makes an Experience Aesthetic , 1986 .

[79]  R. Weisberg.  Creativity - Genius and Other Myths , 1986 .

[80]  D. Cosgrove.  Social formation and symbolic landscape , 1984 .

[81]  S. Kellert.  Affective, Cognitive, and Evaluative Perceptions of Animals , 1983 .

[82]  I. Altman,et al.  Behavior and the natural environment , 1983 .

[83]  J. Wolff.  Aesthetics and the Sociology of Art , 1982 .

[84]  Irwin Altman,et al.  Environment and culture , 1980 .

[85]  J. Averill.  The Functions of Grief , 1979 .

[86]  J. Maquet.  Introduction to aesthetic anthropology , 1979 .

[87]  Stephen Kaplan,et al.  Perception and landscape: Conceptions and misconceptions. , 1979 .

[88]  J. Gibson.  The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception , 1979 .

[89]  C. Izard.  Emotions in Personality and Psychopathology , 1979 .

[90]  Allen Carlson,et al.  On the possibility of quantifying scenic beauty , 1977 .

[91]  N. Luhmann,et al.  Differentiation of society , 1977 .

[92]  J. Wohlwill.  Environmental Aesthetics: The Environment as a Source of Affect , 1976 .

[93]  Irwin Altman,et al.  Human behavior and environment : advances in theory and research , 1976 .

[94]  N. R. Scott.  Toward a Psychology of Wilderness Experience , 1974 .

[95]  J. J. Spector.  The aesthetics of Freud: a study in psychoanalysis and art , 1972 .

[96]  K. Lorenz.  Studies in animal and human behaviour , 1970 .

[97]  J. Bowlby.  Attachment, New York (Basic Books) 1969. , 1969 .

[98]  G. Dickie.  The Myth of the Aesthetic Attitude , 1964 .

[99]  G. Kelly.  A theory of personality : the psychology of personal constructs , 1963 .

[100]  J. O. Urmson,et al.  What Makes a Situation Aesthetic , 1957 .

[101]  A. Maslow.  Motivation and Personality , 1954 .

[102]  Gustav Theodor Fechner,et al.  Vorschule der Aesthetik , 1876 .