Influence of Familiarity on Responses to Visual Qualities of Neighborhoods

Abstract

This study investigated the relationship between familiarity with neighborhood environments and preference for them. Color photographs, eight each from two married student housing complex neighborhoods, were presented to residents of each complex to classify in terms of pleasantness, interestingness and familiarity, χ² tests were used to analyze the data. As was expected, residents evaluated scenes proximate to them as more familiar than distant scenes. All respondents evaluated one neighborhood as more pleasant and more interesting than the other. Nevertheless, evaluations were also influenced by familiarity such that familiarity was related to a decrement in interest and an increment in pleasantness. Familiarity's likely association with a decrease in perceived complexity may well have produced less interest. On the other hand, it is likely that the hedonic response associated with familiarity produced an increment in rated pleasantness. Thus, the positive feelings for familiarity overpowered the negative affect associated with decreased environmental complexity.