ABSTRACT
Urban perception and knowledge are special instances of general perceptual and cognitive processes that are not unified in any single theory of perception (Allport, 1955). For the environmental planner, this lack of theoretical coherence is a problem. Studies in environmental perception are fragmented, and the environment is viewed with different emphases by the various professions and disciplines concerned with it (Kates, 1966; White, 1966). The following notes result mostly from my studies of urban perception in Venezuela and Boston (Appleyard, 1969a; 1969c), together with some reading of the psychological literature. From these studies three characteristic types of urban perception appeared to be dominant: I will call them operational, responsive and inferential.
