DEMOGRAPHIC DIFFERENCES IN THE VISUAL PREFERENCES FOR AGRARIAN LANDSCAPES IN WESTERN NORWAY

This study examines the relationship between a number of demographic v ariables and the visual preferences for a sample of colour slides depi cting traditional and agrarian landscape scenes from Western Norway am ong 198 Norwegian students. In order to attain this purpose, eight dem ographic measures, tapping familiarity, subculture and expertise, were developed. Serving as criterion variables, sumscores were constructed on the basis of a nonmetric factorial analysis (SSA-III), identifying seven perceptual dimensions in the visual preferences for agrarian la ndscapes. The results suggest areas of unanimity as well as areas of d ivergence with respect to the visual perception of agrarian landscapes . Thus, an almost unanimous consensus with respect to (a) the high pre ferences for traditional human-influenced settings and nature scenes, and (b) the relative dislike for dominating human influence and many o f the effects of modern farming practices was found. In contrast, impo rtant divergencies were found for landscape categories in the moderate preference range, with the highest occurrence of group differences fo r a category of scenes depicting farming activities. The most potent d emographic predictors of preference across landscape categories were p resent population density, gender, organization membership and experti se. In addition, effects of age and present geographical region of res idence were observed. The findings support evidence from earlier analy ses of the landscapes in question, indicating strong preferences for t raditional agrarian settings. (C) 1996 Academic Press Limited