Perception of environmental risks of company sites

What are the stimulus properties that affect risk? Is it possible to assess the environmental risk of an industrial site by analysing the company's si te or a photograph of the site? Often banks do this kind of inspection in c ase of a credit application or for new insurance contracts to judge environ mentally caused credit risks. Both from the scientific and from the practic al point of view it would be useful if a valid assessment of environmental risks of company sites done by visual perception could be done, including w hich environmental stimuli are affecting risk cognition in this field. To a nalyse this kind of perception of the manmade environment by visual stimuli , we tested the influence of the stimuli order, brightness, big structures, Gestalt, mod ernity, borders and newness in a quasi-experimental design wi th 54 participants, half of them bankers and half of them students. As cont rol variables we used some personal and societal variables often linked to risk cognition. We presented 21 photographs of company sites to each partic ipant for a fixed amount of time. Each participant had to judge the environ mental risk of the sites. In addition, we assessed the perception of differ ent stimuli and personality variables connected with risk perception. We fo und that bankers and students differ in their risk estimations and that sti mulus characteristics were unstable, varying in their salience by site but not by persons. We identified objects and stimuli, which also increased or decreased environmental risk perception. Personality characteristics were i nconsequential. The findings are usable for training measures for pel sons who have to judge environmental risks of sites. More research has to be don e to identify stimuli affecting risk perception and cognition of manmade en vironments and to analyse the connection between stimuli and site character istics. (C) 2001 Academic Press.