MEASURING THE QUALITY OF THE NATURAL-ENVIRONMENT - A PSYCHOPHYSICAL APPROACH

This article describes recent research efforts in the study of perceived quality of the natural environment. Much of the research to date has focused on the assessment of perceived quality using mathematical modeling methods based on classical psychophysics. Significantly less research has focused on the theoretical understanding of human perception and evaluation of natural environments. Drawing primarily on the author's own work the implications for the specific subfield of environmental psychology as well as for the larger field of psychology are discussed.