Landscape Preference Studies
Public landscape perceptions are studied in many fields of research such as psychology, geography, the social sciences, the environmental sciences. Research methods and approaches vary according to disciplines and research questions but are typically divided into three categories: psychophysical, cognitive, and phenomen- ological approaches (Karjalainen, 2006). The phenomenological approach concen- trates on the experiences of people in the landscape rather than on the quality of the landscape (Karjalainen, 2006). The psychophysical and cognitive approaches can both be named as ‘landscape preference studies’ (LPS). In this paper, however, ‘LPS’ only refers to the psychophysical approach. The psychophysical approach is indeed more relevant than the cognitive approach in producing concrete knowledge for planning and management purposes