INFLUENCE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL NEEDS AND AESTHETIC PERCEPTION ON RURAL LANDSCAPE PLANNING AND DESIGN: AN ANALYSIS BASED ON BEHAVIORAL PSYCHOLOGY

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Revista Argentina de Clínica Psicológica 2020, Vol. XXIX, N°1, 1009-1015

DOI: 10.24205/03276716.2020.141 1009

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NFLUENCE OF

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SYCHOLOGICAL

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EEDS AND

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ESTHETIC

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ERCEPTION

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URAL

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ANDSCAPE

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LANNING AND

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ESIGN

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NALYSIS

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EHAVIORAL

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SYCHOLOGY

Yanju Li

1

_{, Yaping Gao}

2

_*

Abstract

Rural landscape carries unique natural and cultural significance. It should be carefully designed and planned to satisfy psychological needs and aesthetic perception of the audience. Based on behavioral psychology, this paper aims to disclose the influence of psychological needs and aesthetic perception on rural landscape planning and design. First, the author introduced rural landscape and landscape aesthetic perception. Then, the rural landscape design strategy was discussed based on behavioral psychology. After that, 21 natural villages in Jiangxi province, China, were selected to evaluate people’s psychological needs and

aesthetic perception of rural landscape planning and design. The expert scoring method was adopted to evaluate the elasticity, endurance and vulnerability of rural landscape in the study area. The results show that both rural landscape and visual aesthetics of the audience change dynamically; the first impression of rural landscape determines the overall perception; among various elements of rural landscape, riverbank and slope cultivated land best suit the psychological needs and aesthetic perception of the audience. This research promotes the application of behavioral psychology in rural landscape planning and design.

Key words: Rural Landscape, Visual Behavior, Behavioral Psychology, Landscape Planning and Design, Visual Aesthetics, Sustainable Development.

Received: 01-02-19 | Accepted: 10-06-19

INTRODUCTION

With the rapid development of the economy, the traditional living and lifestyle in the villages have undergone earth-shaking changes. The architectural style and landscape layout of the villages have gradually transformed and are getting closer to the towns, which has led to major changes in the original rural settlement landscape (Gemmell & Dunn, 2011). Rural landscape is the result of long-term human adaptation to the local natural environment and the interaction between the people and the earth, and the most important landscape in rural

1_{College of Tourism and Urban-rural Planning, Chengdu}

University of Technology, Chengdu 610059 China, 2_{School of}

Earth Geosciences, Chengdu University of Technology, Chengdu 610059, China.

E-Mail: [email protected]

landscape is the settlement landscape (Ozer & Baris, 2013). At present, the rapid emerging and developing rural tourist industry, and the phenomenon that many urban populations are moving into rural suburbs, can highlight the charm and important value brought by rural landscape to the life of people (Van der Jagt, Craig, Anable et al., 2014, Polat & Akay, 2015). Developed countries such as the United States, Europe and Japan have successively carried out researches on rural landscape sustainability planning based on aesthetic perception, involving geography, environment, society, ecological environment, and other disciplines (Devine-Wright & Batel, 2013).

From the perspective of behavioral

psychology, landscape aesthetics and aesthetic relationship are a kind of stimulus-induced response, and the quantified aesthetics and

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YANJU LI, YAPING GAO 1010

landscape visual environment can be applied to quantitative conversion and analysis (Yeh & Li, 2014). Some scholars proposed landscape design standards from the perspectives of the uniqueness, diversity, effect, pleasantness and aesthetic value of rural landscape based on the aesthetic perception and psychology, and took the habitability, accessibility, compatibility, sensitivity, and scenic beauty as the criteria for aesthetic perception (Hanamura, 2015). People's

aesthetic perception is a kind of psychology, it’s

in the same strain with psychology and involves

the relationship between people and

environment, it also pays attention to the influence of environment on people's behaviors and emotions. That is to say, the design of the

rural landscape can be more in line with people’s

psychological needs through the activities of people in the environment and the response of people to the environment (Kullmann, 2018; Ye, He, Wang et al., 2012). Based on the theory of

behavioral psychology, to satisfy people’s

psychological needs and aesthetic perception, this paper systematically studies rural landscape planning and design and analyzes the influence of behavioral psychology theory on rural landscape planning and design.

RURAL LANDSCAPE AND LANDSCAPE

AESTHETIC PERCEPTION

From the perspective of behavioral

psychology, landscape is an object phenomenon and a cognition process of subject psychology, and it exists in the human life (Velarde, Fry, & Tveit, 2007). Strictly speaking, the countryside takes the natural landscape as the background, which is consistent with the settlement landscape formed by the buildings and the surrounding environment. It is a type of landscape with specific landscape behaviors, forms and connotations (Tsunetsugu, Lee, Park et al., 2013). In terms of landscape composition and landscape characteristics, the settlement

landscape, economic landscape, cultural

landscape and natural landscape in the rural landscape constitute a complex of landscape environment. The rural landscape reflects the complex of humanities and nature (Karmanov &

Hamel, 2009). It’s often divided into four parts:

ecological landscape, industrial landscape, rural living landscape and human landscape (Lee & Chen, 2011).

The design of rural landscape includes

landforms, vegetation, water bodies, farmland, unique features, orchards, buildings, roads, historical sites or cultures, etc. Figure 1 shows the evolution process of rural landscape. From the underground to the surface, the evolution process is divided into stratum, terrain, soil, river system, surface vegetation and settlement; and countless settlements constitute the natural

space. The aesthetic perception and

psychological evaluation of rural landscape are the same. The psychological evaluation includes the quality of rural landscape, the suitability of rural landscape, and the value of the rural landscape, etc., the evaluation is conducted mainly from the perspectives of aesthetics, functions, humanities and ecology, etc., following the scientific principle, operable principle, the principle of combining quantitative and qualitative analysis, and the principle of hierarchy. The study of aesthetic perception and psychological needs of rural landscape involves the theory of behavioral psychology. The planning and design of rural landscape is conducive to the scientific planning of rural

landscape, the rational and effective

development of rural tourism, and the protection of rural landscape resources.

Figure 1

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Evolution of rural landscape

ANALYSIS AND DESIGN OF RURAL LANDSCAPE PLANNING BASED ON BEHAVIORAL PSYCHOLOGY THEORY

Analysis of psychological needs and aesthetic perception of rural landscape planning and design

The planning and design of the rural landscape can be started from the landscape itself. If the rural landscape is regarded as a painting, the types in the landscape should be clear and visible, including the environment, interface, layout, local parts, etc. Under normal

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INFLUENCE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL NEEDS AND AESTHETIC PERCEPTION ON RURAL LANDSCAPE PLANNING AND DESIGN: AN ANALYSIS BASED ON BEHAVIORAL PSYCHOLOGY 1011

circumstances, the rural landscape is not static, it is affected by the illumination time and the climate, moreover, in the cloudy days and sunny days, the after-rain and hot-sun conditions will give people different aesthetic perceptions. In rural landscape, the colors of vegetation, water bodies, farmland, features, and orchards are not constant, these belong to the natural landscape, which has occupied a major part of the rural landscape. In rural landscape planning and design, the distance between the landscape subjects and the carriers to be appreciated determines the cognitive feelings of the people. When viewing from a farther distance, people will pay more attention to the overall rural landscape rather than the features of a specific landscape; while viewing from a closer distance, people tend to appreciate the specific landscape features.

At present, China's rural landscape is divided into two categories: cultural landscape and natural landscape. Cultural landscape mainly includes historical relics, designed historical landscape, historical native landscape and anthropological landscape; natural landscape includes terrain, landforms, vegetation, and mountains, etc. Figure 2 shows the rural landscape planning and design system. The planning and design should meet the people's psychological needs. First, the rural landscape should be divided, archived and recorded, and the integrality and importance of the rural

landscape should be evaluated to form a rural landscape report; then, according to the rural landscape planning documents, formulate the management planning, development planning and resource planning, and construct protected, restored, and renewed rural landscape.

Rural landscape design strategy based on behavioral psychology

In behavioral psychology, people's visual behavioral feelings of any landscape are the most direct and rapid, but the first impression that visual behavior presents to people is the overall impression, which will affect people's psychological and behavioral perception all the time. Figure 3 is the aesthetic design strategy for the rural landscape. The evaluation mainly considers four aspects: naturalness, orderliness, diversity and culture. The naturalness mainly

includes green coverage, local artistic

conception, climate suitability and landscape scale, etc.; the orderliness mainly considers from the perspective of landscape evenness; the diversity of rural landscape includes the sense of spatial order, the geomorphologic peculiarity, the type diversity, and the seasonal diversity, etc. The rural landscape design process should focus on natural beauty, ecological beauty, social beauty, scientific beauty and artistic beauty, and include rural landscape features as much as possible.

Figure 2

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Rural landscape planning and design system

Rural landscape recognition

Filing, evaluation and compilation

Research on historical resources

Importance and holistic evaluation

Rural landscape inventory

Rural landscape report Investigation

and research

Strategic development

Rural Landscape Planning Document

General management planning

Landscape development planning

Resource management planning

Utilize

Conventional rural landscape development

Landscape development of rural resources Planning

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Figure 3

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Rural landscape aesthetic design strategy

EXAMPLES OF RURAL LANDSCAPE PLANNING AND DESIGN BASED ON PSYCHOLOGICAL NEEDS AND AESTHETIC PERCEPTION

Rural landscapes’ current pressure and

planning and design countermeasures

The main functions of rural landscape include the production function of providing agricultural products, the ecological function of maintaining environmental balance, and the tourism

resource function of satisfy people’s

psychological needs. The rural landscape evolves dynamically, and will face different pressures at different stages. As a few rural landscapes have gradually carried out tourism development activities, the landscape with agricultural production as the main function will change and

gradually become tourism consumption

resources. With the change of production mode, rural life and production methods are also influencing the change of the landscape, and the way the original rural villagers make use of the nature, since the newly-built landscape would conflict with the traditional landscape features, it will cause pressure to the planning and design of the villages. When investigating the rural

landscape’s current pressure, this study

conducted a questionnaire survey and visited 21 characteristic villages.

Figure 4 shows the projection values of the

rural landscape aesthetics evaluation indices. The cultural and diversity scores are the lowest, and the score of the orderliness is the highest. Based on visual behavioral psychology, we need to formulate corresponding design strategies for rural landscape, preserve and maintain the current landscape features, highlight the historical depth of the countryside, combine the

tourism development, implant new

preparations, and construct landscape types that meet people's aesthetic psychological needs.

Figure 4

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Projection values of rural

landscape aesthetics evaluation indices

0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9

Cultural Diversity

Orderliness Naturalness

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v

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Rural landscape planning and design examples

Figure 5

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Rural natural landscape

(a) Rural landscape 1

(b) Rural landscape 2

This paper takes 21 natural villages in Jiangxi Province as the research objects to explore

people’s rural landscape planning and design.

Figure 5 shows the natural landscape of a village in Jiangxi Province. It can be seen that the landscape is unevenly distributed and well-arranged, the quality of the ecological environment is relatively high, and the presentation of the landforms, vegetation, farmland, nursery gardens and buildings is incisive and vivid. Through the overall analysis of the rural natural landscape, it is found that the area of cultivated land in the villages is huge, most of which are paddy fields, and the landscape has great potential for improvement; in addition, the space of the rural villages is complete, the buildings are quite unique, and the ancient buildings with local characteristics have been maintained, which is of deep and rustic cultural deposits. In order to evaluate the

rural landscape that meets people's

psychological needs and visual aesthetic design, this paper adopts the expert scoring method to

evaluate the elasticity, endurance and

vulnerability of rural landscape in Jiangxi Province. Figure 6 shows the elasticity evaluation results of aesthetic perception of each unit in the rural landscape. It can be clearly seen that the total evaluation score of the elasticity of gully lakes and seasonal rivers is the highest, most of the landscape design is the tree-cover pattern. The land utilization mode with the highest elasticity score is the riverbank and slope cultivated land.

Figure 6

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Elasticity evaluation results of

aesthetic perception of each unit in the rural

landscape

0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400

Semi-natural dense shrub mountainous areas Gully lakes and

seasonal rivers Riverbank and slope

cultivated land Gully defensive

settlements

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Tree cover pattern Farmland pattern Site boundary Settlement pattern Land utilization

Figure 7

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Endurance evaluation results of

aesthetic perception of each unit in the rural

landscape

0 5 10 15 20 25

30 Tree cover pattern

Farmland pattern Site boundary Settlement pattern Land utilization

settlements

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Figure 7 shows the endurance evaluation results of aesthetic perception of each unit in the

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rural landscape. It can be clearly seen that the total evaluation score of the endurance of the riverbank and slope cultivated land is the highest, the major pattern is the site boundary. Figure 8 shows the vulnerability evaluation results of aesthetic perception of each unit in the rural landscape. The rural landscape that satisfies the psychological needs and aesthetic perception with the highest vulnerability is the riverbank and slope cultivated land, the vulnerability of the semi-natural dense shrub mountainous areas is the lowest. In summary, overall, the rural landscape planning and design can satisfy local resource conservation and sustainable development.

Figure 8

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Vulnerability evaluation results of

aesthetic perception of each unit in the rural

landscape

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80

90 Tree cover pattern

Farmland pattern Site boundary Settlement pattern Land utilization

settlements

V

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CONCLUSIONS

Based on the theory of behavioral

psychology, this paper systematically studied rural landscape planning and design to meet people's psychological needs and aesthetic perception, and analyzed the influence of behavioral psychology theory on rural landscape planning and design. The specific conclusions are as follows:

(1) The study of aesthetic perception and psychological needs of rural landscape involves the theory of behavioral psychology. The planning and design of rural landscape is conducive to the scientific planning of rural

landscape, the rational and effective

development of rural tourism, and the protection of rural landscape resources.

(2) The rural landscape is not static, it changes with the seasons, lamination conditions

and angles, etc., people’s visual behavior

psychology is the most direct and rapid, but the first impression that visual behavior presents to people is the overall impression, which will affect people's psychological and behavioral perception all the time.

(3) The rural landscape evolves dynamically, and will face different pressures at different stages. This paper took the rural landscape design of a village in Jiangxi Province as an example to conduct researches, and found that the total evaluation score of the elasticity of gully lakes and seasonal rivers is the highest, the total evaluation scores of the riverbank and slope cultivated land are the highest.

Acknowledgements

This research has been financed by the National Natural Science Foundation of China for

Young Scholar Project in 2014 of “Research on

the Settlement Landscape Suitability of Long-men Mountain Region Based on Disaster

Evaluation” (NO. 51408075); the China National

Association of Visiting Scholars Western Program, China National Scholarship Council, (No. 201308515021); the Sichuan Province New Institutions Reform and Development Research

Center Project, “Research on the Cultivation

Mode of Architecture Professionals with Ecological Consciousness in the Age of Digital

Technology——Taking Local Colleges and

Universities in Southwest China as an Example”

(No. XJYX2013D03); the Young Key Teacher Program Supported by Chengdu University of Technology.

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