| Visual resource evaluation is one of the major topics in recreation resource management. More recent scenic beauty research for forest recreation areas has been focused on macro forest conditions, such as different cutting treatments or seasonal variations. Also, the effort to integrate both physical and psychological perspectives of scenic beauty assessment has been emphasized in more recent time. The purpose of this study was to produce a physical-psychological integrated model of scenic beauty assessment for forest management purpose involving different forest cutting methods.There were two perspectives (physical and psychological) used in the measurement of scenic beauty. An instrument, called a screenometer, was used to measure the forest physical attributes of tree trunk, twig & foliage, bare ground, and visual penetration. There were 36 forest scenes taken in the Ouachita National Forest in Arkansas to represent different forest cutting methods (control, group selection, shelterwood, and clearcut). The other perspective involved a psychological approach to assess scenic beauty and consisted of the variables: coherence, legibility, complexity, mystery, and visual penetration. Survey ratings of these five psychological variables as well as scenic beauty ratings, were completed during January to March of 1996. The survey used a 10-point rating scale to measure the degree of psychological variables and scenic beauty. There were 88 subjects that participated in the survey.The study results indicated the degree of scenic beauty increased when the level of cutting intensity decreased. Different professional training backgrounds affected subjects' interpretations of psychological variables, such as legibility. Using structural equation modeling analysis, an expanded model involving visual penetration showed the alternative dimensions of visual accessibility and information capability as more appropriate than the Kaplan & Kaplan model for information-processing and preference judgement in harvested forest scenes. Finally, the integrated model showed that both physical and psychological perspectives were useful to assess scenic beauty. However, no matter what conceptual model the study tested, results showed that the psychological perspective, especially the coherence and mystery variables, was more important than the physical perspective in predicting scenic beauty of harvested forest landscapes. |
