VISUAL PERCEPTION OF STREETSCAPES IN QINYANG’S HISTORIC-CULTURAL DISTRICTS: EVIDENCE FROM EYE TRACKING AND THE SEMANTIC DIFFERENTIAL SCALE

Abstract

Eye tracking (ET) can provide direct evidence for evaluating the effects of renewal interventions in historic-cultural districts. Representative streetscape images from typical street segments were collected, and a free-viewing experiment was conducted in a virtual-reality setting. Gaze trajectories and fixation behavior were recorded using the HTC Vive Pro eye-tracking system and the ErgoLAB platform, and indicators were extracted at both the global and area of interest (AOI) levels. The semantic differential scale (SDS) was used concurrently to obtain subjective evaluations across four dimensions: environmental landscape, historical-cultural character, commercial life, and spatial interface. Deep-learning-based semantic segmentation was then applied to perform pixel-level recognition of streetscape elements, from which category-specific pixel proportions were calculated and macro-level indicators were constructed, including the green view index (GVI), sky openness (SO), spatial enclosure (SE), pedestrian-space proportion (PSP), and motorized traffic impact ratio (MTIR). The results indicate that, before renewal, modern disturbance elements such as overhead cables, disordered advertisements, visual obstructions, and parked vehicles readily formed stable visual hotspots and induced gaze dispersion, revealing pronounced attentional capture and attentional competition. These highly salient elements were associated with lower subjective evaluations, indicating that being fixated upon does not necessarily imply positive appraisal; instead, they occupied attentional resources that might otherwise have been allocated to positive features such as historic buildings and cultural signage, thereby weakening cultural legibility and overall aesthetic experience. Semantic segmentation further showed that street segments differed systematically in the GVI, SO, MTIR, PSP, and SE, and that isolated greening interventions were insufficient to offset the negative effects of visual disorder. Accordingly, renewal strategies should reduce disturbance, improve pedestrian circulation and stopping conditions, and strengthen the organization of cultural cues so that experiential quality and cultural recognition can be enhanced simultaneously.