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Building typology shapes the visual structure of streetscapes and may influence stress-related physiological responses. This study develops a novel integrative framework that combines amplitude spectrum slope (-α) analysis, immersive Virtual Reality (VR), and Heart Rate Variability (HRV), indexed by the standard deviation of normal-to-normal intervals (SDNN), to examine how scene-level Spatial Frequency (SF) structure relates to physiological stress. Immersive 360° VR streetscape scenes were reconstructed for three representative Hong Kong building typologies, namely the cantilevered building typology, the super high-rise podium-tower typology, and the podium-tower typology. Amplitude spectrum slopes were calculated from video frames, and physiological stress responses were assessed using SDNN during three 5-minute exposure periods. The results showed significant differences in both α values and SDNN across the three typologies. The podium-tower typology exhibited the lowest mean α value (1.1758) and the highest mean SDNN (54.39), indicating comparatively lower physiological stress. Notably, this typology also produced the α value closest to 1, an SF pattern more consistent with the statistical regularity commonly observed in natural scenes. These findings highlight the potential of the proposed framework as a novel approach to inform evidence-based design in high-density urban environments.
Zordan et al. (Thu,) studied this question.