The subject of environmental aesthetics has at its core more than the monitoring of volatile tastes. Instead, researchers and designers seek universal principles that can explain commonalities and differences in response. The consideration of the theoretical underpinnings of environmental aesthetics can enrich the questions, solutions, and approaches considered by researchers, designers, educators, and others in the field of environmental-design research. The theoretical papers here thus present a framework for further inquiry.

Environmental influences on appraisals of aesthetic quality have two components: formal and symbolic or associational. Formal analysis of aesthetics focuses on the attributes of the object as they contribute to aesthetic response. Such an analysis may consider such properties as size, shape, color, complexity, and balance. Symbolic analysis of aesthetics focuses on factors that through experience produce connotative meanings such that the object implies something else. Thus despite similar formal attributes, a Mercedes and a Ford may produce different meanings, or an artificial flower (although it may look like a real flower) will likely call up different meanings when the observer realizes it is artificial. Symbolic analysis focuses on such things as style and context.

Heath presents a theoretical review of formal factors in aesthetic response. His review considers environmental features and behavioral and cognitive aspects of a situation. He describes the role of complexity and order in relation to two kinds of behavior: instrumental and diversive.