Stated preference methods such as discrete choice experiments (DCEs) are used to elicit respondents' preferences and willingness to pay (WTP) for environmental goods or services whose value cannot be observed in actual markets. However, DCEs may deliver biased estimates because of respondents' unfamiliarity with the hypothetical scenarios to be valued. There is evidence that visualization techniques can enhance respondents' cognitive ability and improve the evaluation and interpretation of complex information. We leverage recent technological advances to create an immersive virtual reality environment delivered to respondents via a head-mounted display in order to conduct a split split-sample experiment on the value of urban greenery (i.e., trees, bio-retention planters) using three different presentation formats (text only; video; virtual reality). We find that (i) respondent certainty can be increased by employing more immersive visualization techniques such as virtual reality, and that (ii) the presentation format has a significant impact on WTP estimates for different types of urban green and can change respondents’ rank order for the urban green options considered in the study.

诸如离散选择实验 (DCE) 之类的陈述偏好方法被用来引出受访者对在实际市场中无法观察到的环境商品或服务的偏好和支付意愿 (WTP)。然而，由于受访者不熟悉要估值的假设情景，DCE 可能会提供有偏差的估计。有证据表明，可视化技术可以增强受访者的认知能力，提高对复杂信息的评价和解释能力。我们利用最近的技术进步创建一个身临其境的虚拟现实环境，通过头戴式显示器提供给受访者，以便使用三种不同演示格式（仅文本；视频；虚拟现实）。我们发现 (i) 受访者的确定性可以通过采用虚拟现实等更具沉浸感的可视化技术来提高，并且 (ii) 呈现格式对不同类型城市绿地的 WTP 估计有显着影响，并且可以改变受访者的排名顺序对于研究中考虑的城市绿色选择。