ABSTRACT
The same landscape can mean different things to different people, and a great deal of research into landscape is concerned with description, analysis and explanation of these differences. This chapter attempts to set out a framework for such studies of landscape perception and preference, and uses as a metaphor those types of spectacles used by opticians into which a variety of lenses can be inserted, when carrying out an eye inspection. The description of national preferences in landscape has frequently been undertaken by the content analysis of a whole variety of material, literary and graphic, and even musical. The division of landscape perception studies owes something to the work of Bourassa, who divided the field into three parts: studies that considered the universality of landscape ideas; those that considered factors common to large groups, most obviously national differences; and those that were very personal.
