• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.87-97
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• 2015

There's a trend towards vitalization of nightscape planning businesses nationally and locally as well for city image making and activation of regional economy, but there is still no systematic nightscape planning going on for lack of relevant researches and objective evaluations. This study aims to suggest the guideline for nightscape planning by conducting an eye tracking experiment and survey for recognizing the characteristics of a nightscape. Furthermore, the authors intended to verify the eye-tracking method as a tool for landscape evaluation. The research site was restricted in the campus of Virginia Tech, VA, and those were selected by experts' survey among various types of nightscape images. The variables for analyzing the characteristics of nightscape images selected were 'preference', 'safety(fear)' and 'clearness'. 'Fixation duration', 'saccade duration', 'scan path length', and 'pupil size' were selected as the eye movement measurements. The results of this study are as follows: The first outcome found was that there were significant differences among the characteristics(preference, safety and clearness) of a nightscape by MANOVA, and these variables were correlated positively by Pearson's correlation. Secondly, there were differences on fixation duration, saccade duration and scan path depending on the nightscape setting statistically. Also, the eye tracking measurement in an open setting was recorded lower than enclosed settings. In the result of a heat map, we found the meaning of the fixated areas on both viewing without intention and viewing intentionally. It turned out that the fixated areas were consistent with the areas the subjects felt preferred and clarity in all of the nightscape images, which means people usually focus on what they prefer and see clearly in a certain nightscape. Based on this result and previous studies, the authors could make a conclusion that eye tracking method can apply to evaluate nightscape settings in terms of analyzing the whole characteristics and finding specific points for the detailed analysis as well. Therefore, these results can contribute by suggesting nightscape planning, implication of the landscape evaluation, and implication of the eye tracking study.