| Under the background of"Healthy China",integrating health and sustainability into urban design has become a critical issue for the construction and renewal of human settlement environments.Urban green spaces(UGSs)have been proven to promote physical and pychological health,provide a respite from daily anxieties,and considerably reduce the risk of acquiring stress.While creating high-quality UGS is critical for public health,few researches have evaluated the spatial quality of UGSs from an emotional perspective.Using UGSs in the scenic area of the West Lake as an example,this study analysed the public emotional health benefits of UGS through simulated and real-world experiments.To begin,fifteen UGSs in the scenic area of the West Lake were chosen as study samples utilizing Baidu Heatmap’s big data.Twelve eye-level indicators of green space quality were chosen and quantified through literature review,on-site research,and model validation.These indicators then fell into three categories:perceived plant attributes,spatial structure attributes,and UGS experience.Using descriptive statistics,the spatial quality indicators of selected plots were divided into 3-6 groups.For the simulated environment experiment,34 participants were presented 360°panoramic videos of 15 scenarios.Their real-time facial expressions were captured,and their emotional responses were quantified objectively using Res Net50 facial recognition model.Immediately following the watching,the participants completed SAM scales to assess their subjective emotional responses.The results indicated that when there was at least 0.3ha~2area of green space,positive emotions increased proportionately to the size of the green space.There was a negative association between crown density and emotional responses.The valence and arousal value decreased significantly with the increase of crown density.The valence value increased as the green view factor and water area increased.For the real-world environment experiment,the researchers screened eight eligible sites from the sample pool and randomly picked 576 people from the site visitors.Then,using Face++API,the individuals’emotional responses and demographic background information were measured.The collected participants had the rights to know that they were being filmed.Simultaneously,the study will prevent individual information from being leaked or abused.The results indicated that there were significant differences in emotional responses between individuals.When in contact with nature,the main emotion was neutral.Larger green space promoted neutral emotions rather than positive emotions.At a shape index of 1.5,the valence value was highest.When the crown density exceeded 60%,the valence value grew dramatically as the crown density climbed.A large area of water could elicit positive emotions.However,a higher green view factor increased people’s fear of the natural environment,eliciting negative emotions.This study further compared and evaluated the applicability and limitations of the simulated environment experiment and the real environment experiment based on the conclusions.The simulated environment allowed more precise setting of green space indicators.However,the number of participants was limited due to the experimental settings of stimulated environment.While the real-world environment could be fully integrated with a great quantity of data for objective assessment,it was difficult to verify whether individuals’emotions were only related to UGSs.Finally,this study proposed a multi-dimensional evaluation paradigm for assessing the spatial quality of UGS and evidence-based design strategies for optimizing green space design. |
