The prediction of scenic beauty from landscape content and composition

Two studies were conducted to examine distance classes of vegetation (foreground, middleground and background) and scene composition (presence of vegetation in left, center or right section of the image) as predictors of perceived scenic beauty. In study one, 41 students rated 63 landscape scenes with regard to scenic beauty. The Scenic Beauty Estimation Method was used to derive interval scale beauty values (SBEs). For each landscape image, areal measures of vegetation in each distance class and for each vertical section were taken and used as predictors. Presence of haze, clouds and human impacts were also recorded. Among the most important contributors to scenic beauty were amount of center middleground vegetation, and center background vegetation. Left foreground vegetation and right foreground vegetation were found to have significant and opposing regression weight signs—negative for the left and positive for the right. Study two was conducted to determine whether these opposing regression weight signs for foreground vegetation were due to a perceptual right-left bias or to some specific content in the image itself. In the second study, the photographic slides used to present landscape scenes to subjects were reversed so that the content which was previously on the right was now left, and vice versa. Thirty-nine students rated the reversed slides with regard to their scenic beauty. The signs of the regression weights in study two shifted such that left foreground was now positively valued and right foreground was negatively valued. This finding suggests that viewers are sensitive to foreground content and its placement in the image, and not simply to one side of the field of vision.