Vessel, Edward A., & Biederman, Irving
University of Southern California

People prefer to look at some scenes rather than others. Why? Subjects rated their preference
for 60 scenes, with each scene repeated five times to assess habituation of preference. Other
subjects rated each scene for the extent to which it depicted a Vista, a place of Refuge, Mystery,
Nature (vs. Urban), Coherence (Could the scene be understood in a glance?) and Legibility (Are
there significant landmarks in the scene?). Multiple regression revealed that these factors
(except for Coherence) accounted for 59% of the initial preference ratings, but only 12% of the
habituation rates. These results are generally consistent with Kaplan's (1992) evolutionary
theory of scene preference.