Thomas Herzog

Grand Valley State University | GVSU

Objectives: Given the need for knowledge on the restorative potential of urban settings, we sought to estimate the effects of personal and contextual factors on preferences and restoration likelihood assessments for different urban activities-in-environments. We also sought to study the generality of these effects across different countries. Meth...

Single letters were presented for varying numbers of repeated brief exposures. After each trial, the S identified only those letters perceived with certainty on the last presentation. Three interpresentation intervals were used: 0.5, 2.0, and 4.0 sec. The percentage of correct identifications (hits) decreased as interpresentation interval increased...

Participants rated houses of worship for one of seven variables: preference, tranquility, age, visual richness, building care, potential for recovery from fatigued attention, and potential for reflection. Factor analysis of the preference ratings yielded four content categories: “contemporary,” “traditional,” “unusual architecture,” and “older red...

A straightforward prediction from attention restoration theory is that the level of incompatibility in a person’s life should be positively correlated with that person’s level of mental (or directed attention) fatigue. The authors tested this prediction by developing a new self-report measure of incompatibility in which they attempted to isolate al...

Are people sensitive to the level of compatibility in everyday settings? We manipulated via scenario both a specified goal and a setting typically associated with a given goal. Settings were either typically compatible with the specified goal or not. Different participants rated either compatibility (as a direct indicator of sensitivity to manipula...

This study of the restorative benefits of visiting a house of worship was based on questionnaire responses by 781 participants. Factor analysis of motivations for visiting yielded five factors, three of which matched those from a previous study (spirituality, beauty, and being away) and two new ones (contemplation and obligation). Factor analysis o...

The authors investigated the impact of perceived danger on judged likelihood of restoration. Participants imagined that they were in a state of directed attention fatigue and then that they were taking a walk in a potentially restorative setting. The authors varied two properties of the setting in a factorial design. The setting was either a nature...

We administered a questionnaire measuring contact with nature, sense of humor, and psychological well-being. Factor analysis of the humor items yielded four factors: humor production, humor appreciation, coping humor, and humor tolerance. Factor analysis of 14 well-being measures yielded three factors: emotional well-being, personal development, an...

Recent studies have found negative correlations between mystery and preference for forest settings. Our reanalysis of earlier data suggested that those findings may have stemmed from a failure to examine setting categories within the forest domain. In the current study of 70 within-forest settings, factor analysis of preference ratings revealed two...

We investigated the relation between independently rated joke cruelty and joke appreciation within the thematically homogeneous category of jokes about the disabled. We found a negative linear relation between appreciation and cruelty for females and no relation for males. This remained true even after controlling statistically for four other rated...

The authors investigated pathway curvature and pathway border visibility as predictors of preference and perceived danger in forest settings. Participants rated 56 forest settings containing pathways for one of four variables—mystery, visual access, pathway length, and pathway width—or for one of four additional predictors. Pathway curvature was un...

The authors attempt to address some unresolved issues within the Kaplans’ preference-matrix model of environmental preference. These issues involve the relation between legibility and preference and the relations among preference, danger, and mystery. Participants rated 70 within-forest settings containing no visible pathways for preference, danger...

The physical environment can promote the functional ability of persons with dementia. Many care facilities use environmental signage (e.g., names on doors) to facilitate adaptive behavior (e.g., room finding). However, the effects of such signage on residents’functioning are not well understood. In three experiments, we investigated if persons with...

Using the well-defined and positively valued setting category of Swedish pastures, Hagerhall (J. Environ. Psychol. 21 (2001) 83) found that as rated typicality of a setting increased, mean preference also increased, but the variance-of-preference ratings decreased. The decrease in variance was attributed to greater consensus associated with more ty...

Legibility has been ineffective as a predictor of environmental preference primarily because of its correlation with another predictor, coherence. The authors tried to separate the two predictors by careful selection of field/forest settings and by using nontraditional definitions. The alternate definitions emphasized landmarks (for legibility) and...

We used a direct rating approach based on definitions of each construct to measure the four components of a restorative environment proposed by attention restoration theory (ART): being away, extent, fascination, and compatibility. We used the same approach to measure two criterion variables, perceived restorative potential (PRP) of a setting and p...

The authors investigated preference, perceived danger, and fear for a sample of 70 field/forest settings. Predictor variables included perception-based variables (visual access, penetration, movement ease), information-based variables (mystery, concealment, refuge), and variables thought to intervene between concealment and danger (entrapment, rear...

We explored a method for measuring what people know about the restorative potential of natural and other settings. A scenario manipulation was used to establish an attentional-fatigue cognitive set. Participants then rated 40 activities drawn from several categories, including nature-related and entertainment, on their perceived restorative potenti...

Herzog and Miller (1998) reported that people judged alleys with sharper curves as less dangerous than straighter alleys. The authors investigated the role of perceived alley length as a possible confounding influence. Raters judged a large sample of urban alleys for two target variables (preference and danger) and six predictor variables (setting...

The authors explore the role of complexity in the relation between building age and preference. Age was assessed as a categorical (via stimulus selection) and a continuous (via ratings of 64 color slides of urban buildings) variable. In either case, the authors replicated earlier research in showing that modern buildings were preferred over older b...

The authors compared several Australian subgroups and American college students on their preferences for Australian natural landscapes. Preference correlations across groups were generally high, with the correlations for Australian adults somewhat lower. Factor analysis yielded six perceptual categories: Vegetation, Open Smooth, Open Coarse, Rivers...

Our purpose was to investigate perceived tranquility (theoretically a combination of moderate fascination and aesthetic pleasure) and perceived danger in urban and natural settings. We explored the relationship of these two target variables to each other and to a set of three predictor variables: openness, setting care, and nature (amount of foliag...

Appreciation for jokes was explored as a function of perceived joke cruelty, emotional responsiveness and sense of humor of participant, joke category, and participant gender. We replicated an earlier finding of an inverted-U relationship between appreciation and cruelty and also found that the function was flatter and peaked at a lower cruelty lev...

https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148487/1/2000_EandB_herzog_et_al.pdf

Independent groups rated 66 color slides of natural settings for the target variables tranquility and preference and for five descriptor variables. There were an equal number of settings from each of three categories: field/forest, deserts, and large waterscapes. Tranquility and preference ratings were substantially and positively correlated in all...

Mundorf et al. (1988) found a complex pattern of gender differences in humor appreciation. Specifically, males enjoyed sexual humor more than females did regardless of humor-victim gender, but for hostile humor each gender enjoyed humor with an opposite-gender victim more than the other gender did. The present study was a conceptual replication of...

Mystery has been implicated as a positive contributor to both environmental preference and perceived danger/fear. We explored the relationships among mystery, danger, and preference as well as between them and two physical features of settings, openness and pathway curvature, in urban alleys and field/forest settings containing pathways. The major...

This study explored similarities and differences between sick and nonsick humor. A set of 28 sick and 27 nonsick jokes were rated for one of four joke properties or for preference by a combined sample of 241 undergraduate students. In addition, several personal characteristics were assessed via questionnaire. Sick jokes and nonsick nontendentious j...

Attention Restoration Theory (ART) proposes that effortful directed attention can become fatigued in modern urban environments. Restoration can occur in a setting that evokes fascination (effortless attention). Ordinary natural settings evoke soft fascination, that is, moderate fascination accompanied by esthetic pleasure. Such settings enable a fu...

Preferences for urban buildings were studied as a function of building age and nature context. The primary finding was that old buildings were preferred over contemporary buildings when building care was equated statistically, but the reverse was true in the absence of such control. Thus, when older buildings are disliked, poor maintenance is likel...

Preferences for sexual cartoons were studied as a function of cartoon category, three characteristics of preference raters, and eight rated properties of the cartoons. Nonmetric factor analysis of preference ratings yielded five categories of sexual cartoons: Heterosexual Pairs, Varied Activities, Mild Themes, Moralizing, and Strange Themes. The He...

Sick jokes proliferate after social tragedies such as the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger. This study investigated preferences for sick jokes as a function of joke category, six predictor variables, and individual differences in a sample of 302 undergraduate students. Nonmetric factor analysis of preference ratings yielded four categories...

Preferences for urban spaces were studied as a function of spatial category and nine predictor variables: spaciousness, refuge, enclosure, coherence, legibility, complexity, mystery, typicality, and age. A non-metric factor analysis of the preference ratings yielded four categories of urban spaces: Open-Undefined, Well-Structured, Enclosed Settings...

Independent groups rated 66 color slides of natural settings for the target variables tranquility and preference and for four descriptor variables. Tranquility and preference ratings were strongly correlated across all settings (r = 0.91). Nevertheless, it was possible to distinguish the two constructs both in terms of mean differences within speci...

Preferences for urban environments containing prominent natural elements were studied as a function of content categories, viewing time, and nine predictor variables: spaciousness, refuge, coherence, legibility, complexity, mystery, typicality, nature, and age. A nonmetric factor analysis of the preference ratings for the longest viewing time yield...

Humor appreciation for captioned cartoons was studied as a function of cartoon category and eight predictor variables: complexity, difficulty, fit, depth, visual humor, artwork, vulgarity, and originality. Preference and funniness proved to be virtually identical as criterion variables and were combined as appreciation for further analysis. A nonme...

How do people react to the visual character of their surroundings? What can planners do to improve the aesthetic quality of these surroundings? Too often in environmental design is misunderstood as only a minor concern, dependent on volatile taste and thus undefinable. Yet a substantial body of research indicates the importance of visual quality in...

The possibility of a connection among high mystery, perceived danger, and depressed preference for certain categories of environments was investigated. Past research had suggested that urban alleys and narrow canyons would exhibit such a pattern. Comparison categories, chosen to be high in mystery and low in perceived danger, were urban and nonurba...

In Study I the kinesthetic aftereffect was assessed by using a wide inducing block and the Petrie (1967) measurement procedure without its initial 45-min rest period. In Study II the aftereffect was examined by employing a wide inducing block and the so-called traditional procedure (Herzog and Weintraub, 1982), following repeated inductions with a...

Preferences for waterscapes were studied as a function of content categories, viewing time and six predictor variables: spaciousness, texture, coherence, complexity, mystery, and identifiability. A non-metric factor analysis of the preference ratings for the longest viewing-time condition yielded four dimensions: (1) Mountain Waterscapes, (2) Swamp...

Assessed the kinesthetic aftereffect by following the procedure of A. Petrie (1967) and using a wide-inducing block. Several other plausible indexes of the augmenter/reducer personality dimension, which refers to the tendency to increase or reduce incoming stimulation, were also assessed via questionnaires and behavioral tasks. Ss were 53 undergrad...

Investigates the category structure of field-and-forest environments and the role of predictor variables in accounting for preference. A further variable of interest was viewing time. The study looks at the effect of viewing time on personal reactions. -from Author

The kinesthetic aftereffect was induced 8 times in a single session with each of 72 undergraduates by traditional wedge-adjustment procedures. Narrow and wide inducing blocks were alternated from one induction cycle to the next. Results for repeated-measurement trends and for measurement artifacts strongly replicate previous findings. Although indu...

Preferences for unfamiliar urban environments were studied as a function of urban categories, viewing time, and four predictor variables: complexity, coherence, identifiability, and mystery. A nonmetric factor analysis of the preference ratings for the longest viewing-time condition yielded five dimensions: Contemporary Life, Alley/Factory, Urban N...

The kinesthetic aftereffect was measured across five days by traditional wedge-adjustment procedures with wide and narrow inducing blocks alternated day by day. The results showed generally stable mean pre- and postinduction scores from day to day for both inducing blocks, a stable and significant positive mean aftereffect (post- minus preinduction...

The experience of the urban environment was studied in terms of how it is categorized, what people's preferences are, and the extent to which complexity and familiarity can account for these preferences. College students rated urban scenes on these three variables under three methods of scene presentation: Slides, Label (name and location), and Ima...

Subjects classified briefly presented uppercase letters as belonging to the first or second half of the alphabet. A prior alternative preceded each target letter by 200 or 1,400 msec. It was either an ampersand (control), a lowercase letter (opposite case), or an uppercase letter (same case). In the latter two conditions, the target was equally lik...

In three experiments, subjects classified briefly presented letters as belonging to either the first or the second half of the alphabet. Prior to each target letter, the subjects were given either a verbally named letter (verbal set), a letter presented visually for 3 sec (visual set), or no prior alternative (control). The target was equally likel...

Free-looking time for randomly generated 18-sided polygons was measured with E present after Ss had been exposed to 2-, 20-, or 45-sec. foreperiods containing either darkness, homogeneous white light, or similar polygons. Free-looking time increased monotonically as a function of foreperiod duration for all three kinds of foreperiod stimuli. Free-l...

The kinesthetic aftereffect was measured across 15 days. Pre- and postinduction scores decreased across sessions for group I > T (inducing block wider than test block) and increased for groups I < T (narrower) and no I (control). The negative aftereffect for group I > T and the positive one for group I < T both declined toward zero across sessions;...

Presented single letters with varying numbers of repeated brief exposures to a total of 21 undergraduates. After each presentation, the S classified the target letter as belonging to either the 1st or the 2nd half of the alphabet. In Exp I, the S knew that all presentations of a trial would have the same target letter. In Exp II, the S knew that a...

Measured under a variety of conditions, the critical feature of the induction period for the kinesthetic aftereffect was found to be a distance between thumb and forefinger different from the width of the test block, and attended to by the subject. A constant-stimulus technique (the group version of the up-and-down method) yielded aftereffects comp...

Single letters were presented for varying numbers of repeated brief exposures. The S reported on the target after each presentation, identifying only those symbols perceived with certainty. A d’ analysis of the results revealed that target-uncertainty reduction produced significant facilitation in the average level of perceptual sensitivity only in...

DISSERTATION (PH.D.)--THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Dissertation Abstracts International,