Visual versus text attributes and how they are presented: A discrete choice experiment on forestry landscape preservation in Quebec

Using a field discrete choice experiment with a representative sample, we estimate Quebec residents' willingness to pay for four landscape attributes, dispersion, land-cover diversity, presence of disturbance, and naturalness, which are relevant to forest landscape management. A split-sample design is used to examine the effects of digitally manipulated photographs on decision-making. In total, visual stimuli showed mixed and heterogeneous effects, primarily reflected in scale differences rather than changes in preference parameters. Summer visuals reduce attribute salience and lead to the highest choice randomness, whereas fall-color visuals produce more modest scale shifts and preference patterns comparable to a text-only baseline. Fall-color visuals are associated with lower attribute non-attendance and clearer perceptions of attribute definition, particularly for dispersion attribute, while summer visuals increase engagement but elevate perceived difficulty and reduce concentration.