A Hypothetical Model of Environmental Perception

Abstract

This paper reexamines a hypothetical model of environmental perception underlying my research development since 1978 when I started to study visual perception of texture in an environmental context. While studying the perception of texture in the environment, it became clear that perception of discrete elemental features (objects) and continuous environmental features (textures) are quite different: texture, which is perceived without focal attention, creates a context in which attended objects stand out, and contributes to enhance the subtle ambience or feelings of the environment (; ).