Cognitive Set and the Perception of Place

Abstract

Twenty subjects provided similarity data for twenty photographs of molar physical environments from each of four cognitive sets by following instructions concerning which aspects of the environment to attend to: Unspecified, Activity, Function, or Emotion. An INDSCAL analysis of the data showed that the same five-dimensional structure emerged independently of cognitive set. The effect of cognitive set was to alter the relative salience of the dimensions. The five-dimensional structure was interpreted as consisting of a host of highly interrelated dimensions, thus precluding a simple, unambiguous interpretation of the dimensions.