Perceptions of landscape patterns: Do the numbers count?

Human perception and intuition can powerfully influence how we measure and interpret landscape pattern. We compared human perception with more quantit ative measures to determine their relative efficacy in arriving at conclusi ons about landscape pattern. We surveyed 30 professional workshop participa nts and 38 undergraduate students for their perception of landscape fragmen tation before and after calculating a suite of landscape metrics. Participa nts' perception of fragmentation was most correlated with number of patches , patch density, and patch shape. Most participants retained their original intuitive response after calculating indices. We suggest that a lack of me aningful quantitative expressions for absolute landscape structure will con tinue to result in a dependence on intuitive human perception for managemen t of landscape pattern.