Experimental Verification of Relaxation Effect of Tree Planting using Eye Movement Tracking

In the Japanese garden, a unique planting design has been used to improve visual harmony with the surrounding landscape by planting plants around the objects that are not harmonious with surrounding landscape. In this study, physiopsychological effects of plants caused by a traditional planting skill used in Japanese garden was verified in terms of visual relaxation using eye movement recording and semantic differential method. A total of fourteen Japanese volunteers(seven male and seven female) who have normal vision(aged $21{\sim}28$) participated as subjects. Experiment was carried out in the sealed room of Chiba University in Japan. Four different types of scenery models were presented which were created by combination of the three landscape factors of the surrounding background, the object that disturbs visual harmony, and the trees planted for improving visual harmony with the surrounding landscape. In the results, significantly more gaze fixations were measured on the trees than on the object and higher values in positive feelings were recorded for the stimuli with proper planting combination. Our results indicated that proper tree planting can cause physiopsychological relaxation by improving visual harmony with the surrounding landscape and provided new evidence for supporting scientific validity of the traditional planting skills.