Use of Photographs to Simulate Environments: A Meta-Analysis

Abstract

From 1,300 articles of relevant literature on environmental psychology, a meta-analysis of the 11 papers which contain the required information yielded a combined correlation of 0.86 between preferences obtained in situ and preferences obtained through photographs. This represented values for 152 environments evaluated by more than 2,400 respondents. Possible applications include the selection of environmental simulation media, ascertaining the amount of work necessary to establish or impeach a claim based on an existing body of research, and revising the form of literature reviews and the operation of peer review to bring contemporary research closer to Bacon's ideal of a converging, collective process.