PERCEPTION OF NATURALNESS IN LANDSCAPE AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO VEGETATION STRUCTURE

The perceived naturalness of 71 landscapes depicting a range of structural vegetation forms and various levels and kinds of structural alteration was judged by 81 subjects of varying age and academic background. The subject's judgements of naturalness were analysed in relation to the dimensions of Specht's classification of vegetation structure and the kind and extent of structural change. Judgements of naturalness fell in the upper half of the possible range, but varied continuously between the limits, indicating that absence of human intervention is not the only basis for naturalness judgements. Within-scene variance decreased with perceived naturalness indicating less consensus in low-naturalness scenes among the subjects. This may be caused by the subjects switching the basis on which judgements are made about conflicting elements common in these scenes. The subjects' judgements of naturalness were related to ecological naturalness but not equivalent. Tall and dense vegetation was judged more natural than low, open vegetation. The subjects could detect structural changes in all vegetation, but were less discriminating as height increased: they were more sensitive to changes in open vegetation than in dense vegetation. Scrub vegetation was seen as less natural than others, and the subjects rated all structural changes in it equally unnatural. This may relate to congnitive dimensions of involvement with the scene and implications of human scale. Agents of structural change were seen as unnatural (e.g. grazing, dereliction and weed invasion) but fire was not. The implications of differences in perceived and ecological naturalness for landscape planning and design are discussed. © 1990.