Consensus in landscape preference judgments: The effects of landscape visual aesthetic quality and respondents' characteristics

•We analyzed three main possible causes of judgment variance in landscape perception.•Judgment variance differed among scenes but not between landscape types.•Respondents' characteristics affected judgment variance.•More positively perceived landscapes were assessed with stronger consensus.

Landscape's visual aesthetic quality (VAQ) has been widely regarded as a valuable resource worthy of protection. Although great effort has been devoted to determining the factors driving aesthetic preferences, public consensus in judgments has been neglected in the vast majority of such studies. Therefore, the aim of our study was to analyze three main possible sources of judgment variance: landscape VAQ, landscape type, and variability among respondents. Based upon an extensive perception-based investigation including more than 400 hikers as respondents, we found that variance in respondents' judgments differed significantly among assessed landscape scenes. We discovered a significant difference in judgment variances within each investigated respondent characteristic (gender, age, education level, occupational classification, and respondent's type of residence). Judgment variance was at the same time affected by landscape VAQ itself – the higher the VAQ, the better the consensus. While differences caused by characteristics indicate subjectivity of aesthetic values, the knowledge that people better find consensus for positively perceived landscapes provides a cogent argument for legal protection of valuable landscape scenes.