Półrolniczak, Marek, and Leszek Kolendowicz. "The influence of weather and level of observer expertise on suburban landscape perception." Building and Environment (2021): 108016.
The study of Marek Półrolniczak i Leszek Kolendowicz analysed whether the type of weather and expertise in landscape-related matters can influence the way people observe a real suburban landscape. Based on the eye-tracking experiment conducted as an on-site survey strategy, it can be concluded that as a result of the education process, our way of looking at the environment, including the way we perceive the landscape, changes accordingly. Additionally, during the observation process conducted in a real landscape, the observer is found to be significantly influenced by the weather conditions.
The obtained research results indicate that:
- Regardless of expertise, suburban landscape perception is influenced by the weather type. The fixation and saccades in positive weather (sunny high-pressure weather with low wind speeds) are significantly shorter, while the distribution of gaze intensity is different compared to negative weather. This means that positive weather supports more effective retrieval, processing and understanding of information in the process of landscape exploration.
- Significant differences between experts and laymen concerning fixations and saccades were found during positive weather, especially when it comes to observing the tested landscape’s central areas ofinterest. This part of the landscape is the most diverse in terms of its details, shapes, contrasts, and colours. Negative weather may in turn reduce the differences in landscape perception by experts and laymen according to fixation and saccades.
- Landscape perception considered separately for expert or layman group is significantly different according to fixation and saccades in both weather types.
- The experts’ visual span of the landscape is not significantly influenced by the weather. They perceive the landscape much more broadly than laymen in both positive and negative weather, and there are no significant differences in visual span when comparing negative and positive weather in terms of the expert group alone. This means that the weather stimulus is not sufficient as a factor to modify the distribution of landscape gaze intensity or to disturb a holistic approach towards analysing a landscape by a person with well-established expert knowledge.
Taking into consideration the abovementioned results of the research in relation to significant differences in the viewing pattern between landscape experts and laymen, we can point to the positive weather type as better suited for research into the perception of landscape by various types of recipients or the assessment of the landscape by its potential users. However, despite the fact that experts assess the landscape differently to laymen, both groups should be taken into consideration in decision making and shaping policy related to environmental management.