Main Factors of Professional Experience on People’s Visual Behavior and Re-Viewing Intention in Different In-Forest Landscapes

Abstract

Background: With the acceleration of urbanization, the demand for people to return to forests and their desire for nature is also increasing annually. However, whether the visual behaviors and aesthetic preferences of users vary with background attributes when viewing forest landscapes remains to be further explored. This information will help forest landscape planners and managers to create a forest landscape space suitable for different groups of people. Purpose: This study mainly discusses whether people’s professional background will affect their visual behavior, satisfaction preference and re-viewing intention of a landscape and discusses the relationship among them. Main results: (1) Under the background of an in-forest landscape, the visual behavior of users in different layouts presents great similarity. (2) Satisfaction preference for landscapes is not significantly influenced by the user’s background, but there is a significant linear relationship between satisfaction preference and re-viewing intention (Adj. R2 = 0.412 − 0.697, sig. = 0.000). (3) The spatial cognition that affects users’ visual behavior and satisfaction preference in a scene will change with the landscape layout and users’ professional background. Therefore, we suggest that landscape planners and managers should consider not only the spatial layout of the landscape itself but also the user’s own attributes (whether they have professional knowledge of the landscape) when optimizing the visual behavior and satisfaction preference of in-forest landscape space. This will ensure that users have a high sense of identity and attachment to the scene in a targeted way, thus arousing a greater “desire” to re-view the scene. In addition, our results can identify a more satisfactory course for tour routes according to the user’s professional background, thus enhancing the rate of tourists who decide to “visit again”.