Interactions between landscape elements and tranquility evaluation based on eye tracking experiments.

Visual attention in tranquility evaluations has been examined by eye tracking experiments using audiovisual materials collected in traditional villages of China. The results show that without sound stimuli, the attention areas in tranquility evaluations are more concentrated, compared with those in visual aesthetic quality evaluations. With sound stimuli, the attention areas of tranquility evaluations disperse significantly from those without sound stimuli, where artificial sounds tend to expand the visual attention area on corresponding artificial landscape elements, whereas natural sounds promote larger attention areas on natural landscape elements. During information extraction for tranquility evaluations, both with and without sound stimuli, buildings and facilities, the sky, and vegetation are attractive landscape elements.