Behavioral and Perception Geography: A Critical Appraisal∗

Abstract

The results of behavioral and perception research are of little value in the explanation of real-world human geographical activity. The idea behind behavioral and perception geography that people behave in the real world on the basis of subjective images, not objective knowledge, is not new. A strong quantitative and theoretical dimension and interdisciplinary orientation distinguishes recent research from earlier work. The main thrust of modern research has been on the composition of images and their relationships to socioeconomic and other attributes of subjects. Behavioral and perception geographers have assumed that environmental images can be measured accurately and that there are strong relationships between environmental images and actual behavior. These assumptions are questionable and so is the status of research based upon them. A new emphasis on actual behavior is needed in behavioral and perception research as a first step towards the investigation of the behavioral consequences of images in real-world geographical contexts.N the 1960s behavioral geography and en-I vironmental perception were recognized widely as important new themes in human geography. The basic idea behind these approaches, nevertheless, was not new. Sauer, Wright, and Kirk, among others, had all emphasized that people behave in the real world not on the basis of objective knowledge, but in terms of subjective images of it.l Most of the leading behav-

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