Which ornamental features of bamboo plants will attract the people most?

Abstract

Plant structure and architecture have a significant influence on how people interpret them. Bamboo plants have highly ornamental attributes, but the traits that attract people the most are still unknown. Therefore, to assess the people's preference for ornamental features of bamboo plants, eye-tracking measures (fixation count, percent of dwell time, pupil size, and saccade amplitude) and a questionnaire survey about subjective preference were conducted by ninety college students as the participants. The result showed that subjective ratings of stem color, leaf stripes, and stem stripes showed a significant positive correlation with the fixation count. The pupil size and saccade amplitude of different ornamental features were not correlated with the subjective ratings. According to random forest model, fixation count was the most influential aspect affecting subjective ratings. Based on integrated eye-tracking measures and subjective ratings, we conclude that people prefer the ornamental features like green stem, green stem with irregular yellow stripes or yellow stem with narrow green stripes, leaves with less number of stripes, normal stem, and tree. In addition, people prefer natural traits, for instance, green stem, normal stem, and tree, related to latent conscious belief and evolutionary adaptation. Abnormal traits, such as leaf stripes and stem stripes attract people’s visual attention and interests, making the fixation count and increasing the percentage of dwell time. This study has significant implications for landscape experts in the design and maintenance of ornamental bamboo plantations in China as well as in other areas of the world.