The Reliability of Ratings of the Familiarity of Environmental Stimuli

Abstract

The present study was conducted to determine the extent to which judges could reliably estimate the familiarity of photographic representations of urban locations. Three factors considered likely to be important in predicting the familiarity of particular locations are identified from the literature: distinctiveness, visibility and regularity of use, and functional or cultural significance. Five expert judges rated 170 locations on four scales of familiarity, and the data were assessed using a generalizability analysis. The principles involved in the interpretation of generalizability coefficients are introduced and the ratings made by the judges were found to be highly reliable. The importance of the three factors as predictors of familiarity is confirmed and contribution of this finding to the operational definition of environmental familiarity is discussed.