A RESEARCH ON A GAZE TIME AT THE GARDEN PATH WALK IN JANANESE GARDEN

A pedestrian's gaze action is related to the feature of a sequence scene. It is thought that there are some garden scene elements which determine the course selection, and that those elements would have shown high fixation frequencies. This research, in order to confirm this assumption, aimed at clarifying pedestrian's visual recognition character over the garden scene elements by using eye-mark recorder in a Japanese garden. The results are as followings: Average gaze time was 0.15sec-0.2sec through the whole scene elements, pedestrian's once gaze time was quite short, and there was no differences in the each scene elements. However, the total gaze time to the flat bridge and the surface of water were in a higher rank among all scene elements, except plant leaves. Former two scene elements belong to the most important category in the element which forms the Japanese gardens. Since these two scene elements were frequently appeared as course selection motives by the questionary survey, it can be said that the "bridge" and the "water surface" are bearing the important role visually in the Japanese gardens. The total gaze time of pedestrian to the artificial scene elements area was higher than those of natural elements area in the scene for experiment. These results lead to the conclusion that different nature scene elements against the natural elements, which were easy to be fixed eyes on, are major factor for course selection.