Research on the Healing Potential of Rural Community Streets From the Perspective of Audiovisual Integration: A Case Study of Four Rural Communities in China

Abstract

Rural communities have become a hot topic in academic circles because of their graceful natural environment and great healing potential. However, existing research still lacks attention to the street space in rural communities and rarely considers its integrated visual and soundscape design in terms of their effect on public health. As a result, the healing potential of rural community streets cannot be fully used in design practice. Relevant audiovisual materials were collected from a field investigation in four rural communities in southwestern China. Based on these data, the subjective and objective healing index data of subjects under comprehensive audiovisual conditions were collected and analyzed through laboratory experiments. The results revealed that type of street space affects healing potential, and the artificial–natural enclosed and natural semi-enclosed streets are the street types with the best healing effect. When the total sound pressure level was 55dB(A), the sound combination with birdsong accounting for 70% had a significant positive effect on improving the healing effect of rural community streets. In contrast, the sound combination with birdsong accounting for 50% or less had no significant effect on improving healing. The subjective healing perception of street space in rural communities was significantly positively correlated with aesthetic preferences. There was also a significant correlation between subjective healing perception and physiological index data in the audiovisual combination. This research explored the impact of different types of street space and sound combinations on the healing effect of rural community streets in an integrated audiovisual environment and provided a scientific basis for the healing landscape design of rural community streets in an integrated audiovisual environment. It was expected to provide new ideas for the construction of rural community landscapes, including acoustic landscapes, to promote physical and mental healing.

Exploring the influence of residential courtyard space landscape elements on people's emotional health in an immersive virtual environment

“…VR technology has gained increasing recognition in urban environmental cognition and experience research, and some scholars have demonstrated the feasibility of the technology in environmental health design research ( 14 , 15 ), but some scholars have recently argued that research findings in virtual natural environments are unreliable and need to be further calibrated and validated in the future ( 37 ). This study explored the effects of two landscape elements: green vegetation and fitness facilities, on the emotional health of people in residential compound space based on a virtual experimental platform, and the results showed that the residential compound space environment with a higher green view rate has a better effect on the emotional health of people, which is consistent with the previous study conducted in a real environment, which concluded that “the magnitude of the green view rate is positively correlated with emotional recovery” ( 38 , 39 ) and “higher recovery is more likely to be associated with natural rather than artificial landscape elements” ( 40 ).…”

“…Among the natural elements, green vegetation is considered to be the most important landscape element ( 8 – 11 ), and the green view rate is considered to be the best indicator of environmental effects on stress reduction and emotional recovery (20–40% decompression effect is the best) ( 12 ). Xu et al demonstrated through VR experiments that the green view rate and openness of street interface have significant effects on street healing ( 13 ), and Fu Erkang et al also found that a high green view rate and low openness could effectively promote the perception of healing in street space in a study of audio-visual interactive street healing environment ( 14 ). In addition, positively valued man-made features play a key role in the visual quality of the environment and are an important landscape element ( 15 ).…”

Back to the Village: Assessing the Effects of Naturalness, Landscape Types, and Landscape Elements on the Restorative Potential of Rural Landscapes

“…Rural landscapes, which are distinguished by their unique ecological attributes and substantial restorative potential [29], are considered highly conducive to the restoration of physical and mental health in the modern world [30]. Studies have indicated that living in rural environments helps alleviate physiological stress such as tension and fatigue [31], improves emotional states, and facilitates psychological recovery [32].…”

“…Some studies have examined the impact of certain landscape elements on restorativeness. For example, a recent study found that rural landscapes rich in natural elements significantly enhanced people's perception of healing [29]. Nordh noted that water, terrain, and vegetation are the most restorative elements in a landscape [34].…”

“…The RCS is based on ART and includes 22 items divided into four theoretical dimensions: being away, extent, fascination, and compatibility [67]. All of the items have been accurately translated from English into Chinese in previous studies and are rated using a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 to 5 [4,29]. In this study, the participants rated each type of landscape.…”