Abstract
The way that psychologists conceptualize the nature of visual perception directly influences the way they conceptualize the environment from a psychological standpoint. For that reason, commentary on the contributions to this symposium volume addressing the relationship between the natural environment and psychological functioning is organized with regard to the implicit approach to visual perception each chapter adopts. Such theoretical commitments shape how we think about the environment from a psychological perspective, the kind of research questions we ask, the particular methodologies that are employed and, in some cases, the practical applications that stem from them. This examination of the volume’s chapters is preceded by a discussion of the complexities attending a definition of the natural environment, and a proposal that psychologists might base that definition on those environmental properties that perceivers attend to when designating an environment as natural. Having specified those perceivable properties, we can proceed to inquire on what basis perceivers express greater preference for natural environments. In the course of these reflections, other pertinent issues are discussed, including environmental preference in relation to evolutionary theory; affordances and environmental preference; and psychological restoration as a process of re-establishing functional stability. Particular attention is paid to the place of perception-action in relation to the environment.
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Acknowledgments
I am grateful to the editors of this volume, Anne Schutte, Jeffrey Stevens, and Julia Torquati, for inviting me to participate in the long-esteemed Nebraska Symposium Series, and for their helpful feedback and suggestions on earlier versions of this chapter. I also thank Louise Chawla and Agnes van den Berg for their comments on some sections. Finally, the influence of Jack Wohlwill on my initial thinking about environmental perception and environmental psychology generally should be apparent here, and I dedicate this chapter to his memory.
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Heft, H. (2021). Perceiving “Natural” Environments: An Ecological Perspective with Reflections on the Chapters. In: Schutte, A.R., Torquati, J.C., Stevens, J.R. (eds) Nature and Psychology. Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, vol 67. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69020-5_8
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