Evaluating the legibility of urban parks based on neuroscience and the FVFL model

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of the study is to quantitatively evaluate the role of landscape values and factors in urban parks experimentally based on neuroscience.

Design/methodology/approach

In the first step, ten major parks were selected out of 59 regional and trans-regional parks in Tehran for field study analysis. Next, considering the diversity and abundance of landscape elements in the selected parks, Mellat Park was chosen for the case study.

Findings

The fixation duration of the factors has an average correlation coefficient of 0.5865, −0.5035 and −0.5125 for the overall sketch map, quality and accuracy, respectively. The results indicated that the “quality of people's cognitive maps” has a direct relation to fixation duration on “human-made factors” and an inverse relation to fixation duration on “natural factors” and “human activities and behavioral factors” in the park.

Practical implications

The results can pave the way for further research in the interdisciplinary fields of landscape architecture and neuroscience.

Originality/value

Legibility is a superior quality of urban spaces that profoundly affect how people perceive and behave.

Citation

Gholami, Y., Taghvaei, S.H., Norouzian-Maleki, S. and Mansouri Sepehr, R. (2022), "Evaluating the legibility of urban parks based on neuroscience and the FVFL model", Archnet-IJAR, Vol. 16 No. 2, pp. 245-259. https://doi.org/10.1108/ARCH-05-2021-0149