Hotheads 1 37s 376 1 HOW THE MIND WORKS

agine that you are on a camping trip that lasts a lifetime. Having to water from a stream and firewood from the trees, one quickly learns

appreciate the advantages of some campsites over others. Dealing with osure on a daily basis quickIy gives one an appreciation for sheltered

out of the wind, snow, or rain. For hunter-gatherers, there is no e from this way of life: no opportunities to pick up food at the gro- tore, no telephones, no emergency services, no artificial water sup , no fuel deliveries, no cages, guns, or animal control officers to

tect one from the predatory animals. In these circumstances, one's depends on the operation of mechanisms that cause one to prefer itats that provide sdcient food, water, shelter, information, and

",safety to support human life, and that cause one to avoid those that do not. - 'Torno rapiers is adapted 4 t w o habitatshne is the Afncan savanna,

+iln. which most of our evolution took place. For an omnivore like our &ncestors, the savanna is a hospitable place compared with other ecosys- &&ems. Deserts have little biomass because they have little water. Temper- @ite forests lock up much of their biomass in wood. Rainforests-r, as @they used to be called, jungles-place it high in the canopy, relegating komnivores k3, . on the ground to being scavengers who gather the bits that fall

m above. But the savanna-grasslands dotted with clumps of trees- .rich in biomass, much of it in the flesh of large animals, because grass

enishes itself quickly when grazed. And most of the biomass is con- %: iently placed a meter or two from the ground. Savannas also offer F i a n s i v e views, so predators, water, and paths can be spotted from afar. r&s trees provide shade and an escape from carnivores. & s< , Our second-choice habitat is the rest of the world. Our ancestors, %&er evolving on the African savannas, wandered into almost every nook F&d cranny of the planet. Some were pioneers who left the savanna and

en other areas in turn, as the population expanded or the climate Others were refugees in search of safety. Foraging tribes can't

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stand one another, They frequently raid neighboring territories and kill any stranger who blunders into theirs.

We could afford this wanderlust because of our intellect. PeopIe explore a new landscape and draw up a mental resource map, rich in

- details about water, plaits, animals, routes, and shelter. And if they can, , they make their new homeland into a savanna. Native Americans and Aus-

tralian aborigines used to bum huge swaths of woodland, opening them up for colonization by grasses. The ersatz savanna attracted grazing animals, .; which were easy to hunt, and exposed visitors before they got too close. 4

The biologist George Orians, an expert on the behavioral ecology of ; I birds, recently turned his eye to the behavioral ecology of humans. With '! Judith Heerwagen, Stephen Kaplan, Rachel Kaplan, and others, he i -- argues that our sense of natural beauty is the mechanism that drove our .' I ?

; ancestors into suitable habitats. We innately find savannas beautiful, but 4 we also like a landscape that is easy to explore and remember, and that

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we have lived in long enough to know its ins and outs. 1 In experiments on human habitat preference, ~merican children and 4 dults are shown slides of landscapes and asked how much they would ike to visit or live in them. The children prefer savannas, even though I they have never been to one. The adults like the savannas, too, but they f like the deciduous and coniferous forests-which resemble much of the habitable United States-just as much. No one likes the deserts and ', the rainforests. One interpretation is that the children are revealing our 2 I species' default habitat preference, and the adults supplement it with the land with which they have grown familiar. I

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-2, Of course, people do not have a mystical longing for ancient home- j .? lands. They are merely pleased by the landscape features that savannas E 4. 3 tend to have. Orians and Heerwagen surveyed the professional wisdom Y

of gardeners, photographers, and painters to learn what kinds of land- ' +

scapes people find beautiful. They treated it as a second kind of data on .4 human tastes in habitats, supplementing the experiments on people's j reactions to slides. The landscapes thought to be the loveliest, they ,,. found, are dead ringers for an optimal savanna: semi-open space (neither .L completely~e@osed, which leaves one vulnerable, nor overgrown, which :{

t r impedes vision and movement), even ground cover, views to the horizon, ; large trees, water, changes in elevation, and multiple paths leading out. $ The geographer j* Appleton succinctly captured what makes a land- F

scape,appealing:,prospect and refuge, or seeing without being seen. The combination allows us to learn the lay of the land safely.

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-- H o t W I 377

C - . . .kind itself must be legible, too. Anyone who has bst. a: rpil h.,a

st or seen footage of sand dunes or snow drifts in al l~airrct io~ e terror of an environment lacking a frame of referenik. A Isuidc2

s just a very big ybject, and we recognize complex objects by locat- parts in a reference frame belon@ng to the object (see Chapter 4).

nce frames in a mental map are big landmarks, like trees, rocks, nds, and long paths or boundarid, like rivers and mountain ranges. without these guideposts is unsettling. Kaplan and Kaplan found key to natural beauty, which they call mystery Paths bending hills, meandering streams, gaps in foliage, undulating land, and locked views grab our interest by hinting that the land may have

features that could be diwokred by further exploration. also love to look at animals and plants, especially flowers. If

are reading this book at home or in othet pleasant but artificial sur- gs, chances are you can look up and find animal, plant, or flower in the decorations. Our fascination with animals is obvious. We

.&em, they eat us. But our love of flowers, which we dent eat except ds in overpriced'testaurants, needs an explanation. We ran into it

apters 3 and 5. People are intuitive botanists, and a flower is a rich e of data. Plants blend into a sea af green and often can be identi-

by their flowers, Flowers are haibgers of growth, marking the ture fruit, nuts, or tubers for creatures smart enough to remem-

ome natural happenings are deeply evwative, like sunsets, thuqder, ring clouds, and fire. Orians and Heerwagen note that they tell of

.iinrninent and consequential change: darkness, a storm, a blaze. The otions evoked are arresting, forcing one to stop, take notice, and pre-

for what's to come. nvironmental aesthetics is a major factor in our lives. Mood depends

surroundings: think of being in a bus terminal waiting room or a lake- .cottage. People's biggest purchase is their home, and the three rules

me buying-location, lmtion, and location-pertain, apart from ss to amenities, to grassland, trees, bodies of water, and prospect ). The value of the house itself depends on its refuge (cozy spaces)

tery (nooks, bends, windows, multiple levels). And people in the st of ecosystems strive.for a patch of savanna to call their own. England, .any. land that is left alone quickly turns into a scruffy

ous forest. During my interlude in suburbia, every weekend my :burghers and I wadd ,drag out our lawn mowers, leaf blowers,

378 1 HOW THE MIND WORKS

weed whackers, limb loppers, branch pruners, stem snippers, hedge clip- pers, and wood chippers a Sisypheqaeffort to hold the forest at bay. Here in Santa Barbara, the land wants to be an arid chaparral, but decades ago the city fathers dammed wilderness creeks and tunneled through mountains to bring water to thirsty lawns. During a recent drought, homeowners were so desperate for verdant vistas that they sprayed their dusty yards with green paint.