The Effect of Urban Landscapes As Backround Images on Perception

Abstract

A previous study shows that background images have an effect on viewer’s perception interpreting the emotion displayed by the face presented front. (Shimada et. al, 2007) Whilst such study uses lightening and flower garden scenes as background images, the present study will use urban and rural landscapes instead. To this aim eight photos were taken, which display each time one person with an expressionless face front. The background images were alternately skyscrapers, highway, a house with a garden and a forested earth road. The photos were showed to the participants (n:60) who were divided into two groups according to the places they have grown in (urban/rural) and they were asked to tell about the emotions of the person presented. The results agree with the previous studies revealing that the background image has an effect on interpreting the emotion of the person displayed on the foreground. People displayed in front of the skyscrapers were interpreted as happy and joyful by both groups, however forested background led the participants grew up in an urban environment to interpret the emotion of the people depicted front as fear, whilst the same expressionless face were interpreted as “sad” by the participants from rural areas.