The primacy of affect in environmental response : identifying environmental preferences using experimental priming with optimal and suboptimal stimulus exposures

Grannis, Margaret, S.

Dissertation Abstract

This study examined the affective quality of typical, everyday environmental features presented at suboptimal viewing exposures. I tested five paired sets of variables: a High vs. Low Depth-of-field, Calm vs. Turbulent Water, a Healthy vs. Degraded environment, Irregularity vs. Regularity and Ordered vs. Disordered Complexity in both natural and urban environments. One group of participants viewed a set of experimental primes at suboptimal exposures of 4 milliseconds and another group viewed them at optimal exposures of 1,000 milliseconds. Each condition group consisted of 39 trials in which respondents gave a preference rating for a set of nonaffective target stimuli represented by Chinese ideographs. An experimental prime consisting of an environmental scene, a polygon or a blank slide preceded each ideograph. The environmental scenes served as affective primes and represented 10 physical features that I expected to elicit a positive evaluation and 10 features that I expected to elicit a negative evaluation. Fourteen irregular polygons and 5 blanks served as controls for which I did not expect an affective response. The Chinese ideographs served as both target stimuli and masks to the experimental primes. Ten of the Chinese ideographs repeated, primed once with a positive environmental prime and once with a negative prime. The dissertation had three experiments. In one I obtained preference ratings in the form of LIKE/DISLIKE. In another I obtained GOOD/BAD ratings. In the last study I presented the primes for a slightly longer duration of 6 milliseconds. Overall, when presented at suboptimal exposures, participants ratings shifted in the direction of the valence of the primes. When presented at optimal viewing exposures participants showed a preference for Irregularity in the natural environment and for Calm Water and a Healthy environment in both the natural and urban context They also showed a moderate preference for a High Depth-of-field in the natural environment and Ordered Complexity in the urban environment. Participant's ratings failed to show a significant preference for the features in the natural environment. The results of the study suggest that when presented at suboptimal viewing exposures environmental scenes have a smaller effect than do faces.