An Eye-Tracking Study on Exploring Children’s Visual Attention to Streetscape Elements

Urban street spaces play a crucial role in children’s daily commuting and social activities. Therefore, the design of these spaces must give more consideration to children’s perceptual preferences. Traditional street landscape perception studies often rely on subjective analysis, which lacks objective, data-driven insights. This study overcomes this limitation by using eye-tracking technology to evaluate children’s preferences more scientifically. We collected eye-tracking data from 57 children aged 6–12 as they naturally viewed 30 images depicting school commuting environments. Data analysis revealed that the proportions of landscape elements in different street types influenced the visual perception characteristics of children in this age group. On well-maintained main and secondary roads, elements such as minibikes, people, plants, and grass attracted significant visual attention from children. In contrast, commercial streets and residential streets, characterized by greater diversity in landscape elements, elicited more frequent gazes. Children’s eye-tracking behaviors were particularly influenced by vibrant elements like walls, plants, cars, signboards, minibikes, and trade. Furthermore, due to the developmental immaturity of children’s visual systems, no significant gender differences were observed in visual perception. Understanding children’s visual landscape preferences provides a new perspective for researching the sustainable development of child-friendly cities at the community level. These findings offer valuable insights for optimizing the design of child-friendly streets.