VIEWER PREFERENCE FOR SPATIAL ARRANGEMENT OF PARK TREES - AN APPLICATION OF VIDEO-IMAGING TECHNOLOGY

Research on perception of parks and recreation settings has examined s everal important tree attributes that influence people's visual prefer ences. This research, however, has usually not considered the spatial arrangement of the trees, partly because of the lack of adequate metho ds for representing tree arrangements with systematically manipulated geometries. In the study reported here, computer video-imaging techniq ues were used to construct simulated landscape scenes that varied on s pecific dimensions of the spatial configuration of trees. The simulati ons were rated for visual preference by three respondent groups: a uni versity class, a bicycle club, and a women's civic group. Preference r atings were significantly influenced by the number of trees in the sce ne, by the number of clumps into which trees were grouped, and by the diameter of the clumps. The video-imaging technology implemented in th is study offers important methodological advantages for the design of carefully controlled experiments to study human response to variation in landscape treatments.