Surveys eliciting qualitative judgments of environments might have an objective psychophysical basis. They can employ numeric, single-construct, integer rating scales or ratio scales between opposing negative and positive end-point constructs. Each stimulus can be measured by different ‘averaging’ methods across subjects' ratings. The impacts of these choices on data reliability and validity were investigated. Three different rating scales were presented to different sets of subjects who rated the same stimuli. Eighty photos of various forests and timber harvests were rated for (1) scenic beauty on a 1 to 10 scale, (2) ugliness or scenic beauty on a −5 to +5 scale, or (3) the same bipolar scale but without a central zero value. Ratings from each photo from one rating scale were averaged and ‘averaged’ again by the Scenic Beauty Estimate (SBE) signal detection algorithm. Distributions of the raw and averaged ratings were examined to explore validity by conformance with psychophysical theory. Ratings from the bipolar scale without a zero exhibited the most evidence of validity across a wider range, indicating that it best conformed with discrimination of photos' perceived beauty and ugliness along a shared, psychophysical gradient. Averaged ratings from the 1 to 10 scale produced the most reliable data, while its SBEs were slightly less reliable but with more stable errors. These ratings exhibited poor validity among low-beauty photos The bipolar rating scale that included a zero value was least reliable and valid, particularly across its ratio SBEs. All rating scales' average ratings or SBEs exhibited acceptable reliability.

对环境进行定性判断的调查可能具有客观的心理物理学基础。他们可以使用数字、单一结构、整数评级量表或相反的负和正端点结构之间的比率量表。每种刺激都可以通过不同的“平均”方法跨受试者的评级来测量。调查了这些选择对数据可靠性和有效性的影响。三个不同的评定量表被呈现给评定相同刺激的不同组的受试者。八十张不同森林和木材采伐的照片被评为（1）风景秀丽（1 到 10 级），（2）丑陋或风景秀丽（-5 到 +5 级）或（3）相同的双极等级但没有中心零值。通过风景秀丽估计 (SBE) 信号检测算法对来自一个评级量表的每张照片的评级进行平均并再次“平均”。检查原始和平均评级的分布，以通过与心理物理学理论的一致性来探索有效性。没有零分的双极量表的评分在更广泛的范围内表现出最有效的证据，表明它最符合对照片在共享的心理物理梯度上感知的美与丑的区分。从 1 到 10 的平均评级产生了最可靠的数据，而其 SBE 的可靠性稍差，但误差更稳定。这些评级在低美度照片中表现出较差的有效性。包含零值的双极评级量表最不可靠和有效，尤其是在其比率 SBE 中。