The influence of academic background on the visual perception of heritage rural landscapes: an eye-tracking study of Tianluokeng Village

Abstract

With growing emphasis on heritage conservation and rural tourism, heritage villages have become important resources for cultural landscape presentation. At the same time, antenna-enabled augmented reality, wireless guide systems, and electromagnetic spatial-interaction technologies require empirical understanding of how different audiences visually perceive heritage environments. This study takes Tianluokeng Village in Fujian, China, as a case study and combines eye-tracking experiments with semi-structured interviews to compare landscape-trained students and non-trained students in terms of visual attention distribution, visual behavior, and cognitive expression. Five categories of landscape photographs were selected as experimental stimuli: architectural landscape, agricultural landscape, natural landscape, folk cultural landscape, and tourism service landscape. The results show that the landscape-trained group exhibited more concentrated visual hotspots on core compositional elements, whereas the non-trained group displayed more dispersed scanning patterns. Significant differences were found in total duration of fixations, number of fixations, and number of visits. The non-trained group showed higher fixation engagement and revisit frequency, while the landscape-trained group demonstrated more efficient information acquisition. In cognitive expression, landscape-trained participants emphasized spatial structure and element relationships, whereas non-trained participants relied more on overall impressions. The findings provide empirical support for heritage conservation, tourism management, and the design of electromagnetic spatial sensing and interactive display systems for diverse audiences.