For the social sciences, particularly those concerned with man's relations to other men, the physical environment has been conceived as a given, rather than as a source of parameters for understanding human behavior. Urban settings, for example, are distinguished from suburban or rural settings, or the "ghetto" from the more affluent areas of a community, but more for their contrasting properties as social systems or complex social contexts than for the differences between them as organized physical settings. The scientific literature abounds in descriptions of ghettos as a prelude to examining them as sociocultural systems generating given sets of values and relevant behaviors. But systematic studies of the behavioral consequences of ghettos as physical settings are rare indeed.Even at a more circumscribed level of analysis-a neighborhood, an apartment, or a business office-the physical setting is no less taken for granted. It is assumed to set the stage for and perhaps define the actors' roles with respect to particular human relationships and activities; but for any given setting there are countless variations in design and substance that are generally ignored in the attempts to establish the factors that facilitate or hinder the prescribed behaviors.It is reasonable to ask why [the] physical setting has been neglected in the theory and research of social scientists. In our judgment, it is rooted in more Harold M. Proshansky received his PhD in social psychology from New York University in 1952. He is currently a Professor of Environmental Psychology and Social Psychology in the Graduate Division of the City University of New York, where he also serves as Dean of the division. His major research during the last 10 to 12 years has been in the field of environmental psychology, with particular interest in privacy and territoriality in hospital, school, and other urban settings.William H. Ittelson received his PhD in 1950 from Princeton University. He is currently a Professor of Environmental Psychology and Codirector of the doctoral program in environmental psychology of the Graduate Division of the City University of New York.

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This paper addresses two fundamental questions: "What is the nature of environmental perception?" and "What is the relationship between perceived environmental change and environmental action?" The questions are approached by analyzing the dimensions of environmental experience into four major categories: the environment as external object, as representation of self, as embodiment of value, and as arena for action.

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