Eye tracking deciphers key factors influencing children’s implicit visual preferences for street space elements on school commuting routes

Under the background of the child-friendly city initiative, school commuting routes serve as the core daily space connecting families and schools for children aged 6-14, and the design of their street environments directly impacts children's travel experiences and healthy development. Existing studies mostly focus on the macro planning of child-friendly spaces, lacking systematic decomposition and quantitative analysis of children's visual preferences for specific environmental elements in school commuting routes. To fill this gap, this study uses eye-tracking technology (Tobii Eye Tracker 5) and mathematical statistical analysis (Friedman test, Spearman correlation analysis) to explore the patterns and key influencing factors of children's visual preferences for four core elements (architecture, ground, greening, and facilities) of street spaces along school commuting routes. Sixteen children aged 6-14 were selected as participants, who observed 12 screened street view photos of school commuting routes (including historical style, high greening-dominated, facility-dominated, and conventional comprehensive types). Data such as eye-tracking trajectories, heat maps, fixation duration and frequency were collected, and a comprehensive analysis was conducted combined with questionnaire feedback. This study reveals children's implicit preferences for micro-environmental elements in school commuting routes through quantitative methods and constructs a "factor indicator-visual preference" correlation model, making up for the deficiency of insufficient attention to the micro-level in existing studies. The research conclusions can provide scientific support for the refined design of school commuting routes in the construction of child-friendly cities, helping to create safe, comfortable, and child-centered daily travel spaces. Meanwhile, it enriches the research methods and theoretical achievements in the fields of child environmental psychology and urban planning.