Recent research has demonstrated that landscape design intensity impacts individuals’ landscape preferences, which may influence their eye movement. Due to the close relationship between restorativeness and landscape preference, we further explore the relationships between design intensity, preference, restorativeness and eye movements. Specifically, using manipulated images as stimuli for 200 students as participants, the effect of urban green space (UGS) design intensity on landscapes’ preference, restorativeness, and eye movement was examined. The results demonstrate that landscape design intensity could contribute to preference and restorativeness and that there is a significant positive relationship between design intensity and eye-tracking metrics, including dwell time percent, fixation percent, fixation count, and visited ranking. Additionally, preference was positively related to restorativeness, dwell time percent, fixation percent, and fixation count, and there is a significant positive relationship between restorativeness and fixation percent. We obtained the most feasible regression equations between design intensity and preference, restorativeness, and eye movement. These results provide a set of guidelines for improving UGS design to achieve its greatest restorative potential and shed new light on the use of eye-tracking technology in landscape perception studies.

Globalization and urbanization have made many Chinese cities lose their distinct characteristics and have led to emotional sense of loss for individuals. Place attachment, as encompassing place dependence and place identity, is the positive emotion that describes the psychological connections between people and a certain place. Many studies have indicated that people develop place attachment toward a certain place by long-term interaction with that place. However, few studies have demonstrated that place attachment might also be evoked by a landscape that looks familiar, but with which a person has not had long-term interactions. It is important to understand the role of place attachment in urban design, as neglecting place attachment can have a negative impact on the outcomes of urban planning and urban design. In this study we explored the contributions of local landscape elements to people’s place attachment to a new physical environment by means of a cross-regional comparative study. Three groups of respondents living in three different areas of China were chosen, and a photo-based approach was used to examine the association between local landscape elements and place attachment. The results indicate, first, that local landscapes positively contribute to residents’ place attachment. Next, an individual’s place attachment to new environments can be enhanced by adding familiar local landscape elements. Findings suggest that planners and designers can build stronger place attachment by integrating landscape elements that are familiar to people. This can have implications, for example, when creating links between newcomers and the new environments to which they have moved.

From the perspective of landscape and human health, we use the Self-Rating Restoration Scale (SRRS) as a tool to explore the mental health restoration benefits brought by a landscape environment to individuals and explore the characteristics of individual movement behavior when viewing the landscape through the eye movement tracking technology. We selected average blink duration, average gaze length, average saccade amplitude, blink number, number of fixation points, saccade number, and average pupil diameter as experimental indicators for data monitoring. Based on the eye movement heat map obtained by data visualization processing and the results of correlation analysis, we summarized the eye movement behavior characteristics of individuals when viewing the restorative landscape. We try to construct a quantitative evaluation model of the landscape mental recovery benefit with the objective eye movement index as the independent variable through the method of curve estimation. The study results show that individual eye movement behavior is related to the landscape type and the level of psychological recovery is also different. (1)The more singular that the constituent elements are, the more widespread and concentrated the regional distribution of individual attention areas, and the relative psychological recovery benefit is relatively weak. The more complex that the constituent elements are, the more scattered and smaller the individual interest area, and the psychological recovery benefit is better. Brightly colored, dynamic landscapes are easier to form areas of interest to improve the psychological response to the human body. (2) The psychological recovery benefit of the landscape is directly proportional to the changing trend of the average blink duration, number of fixation points, and number of saccades and is inversely proportional to the changing trend of the average gaze length. (3) The objective eye movement index of average blink duration can quantitatively predict the psychological recovery benefit value of the landscape environment. The number of fixation points, the number of saccades, and the average fixation length could predict the psychological recovery benefits of the landscape, while the other indicators had no prediction effect.

Studies have indicated that urban greenways promote physical and perceived restoration. However, there is a lack of research on the impact of treetop trails on human perceived restoration. In this study, two representative treetop trails in Fuzhou city were selected to investigate treetop trails’ impact on users’ perceived restoration. The study adopted a structural equation modelling approach to explore the influence mechanisms and pathways of treetop trails on users’ perceived restoration, through 412 questionnaires. The results showed that the perceived environmental quality of treetop trails had a significant positive effect on users’ overall psychological wellbeing. Place attachment had a significant positive effect on users’ perceived restoration and a significant mediating effect on users’ perceived environmental quality of trails. The results of this study revealed that the mechanisms of the impact of treetop trails on users’ perceived restoration and the construction of treetop trails can be enhanced in the future by improving trail facilities, enriching trail perception of elevated feeling, improving trail landscape quality, and optimising trail design.