Beyond built density: From coarse to fine-grained analyses of emotional experiences in urban environments

The migration of individuals to urban centers in the last century has coincided with a rise in stress-related mental health issues among city dwellers compared to their rural counterparts. Neurourbanism, a burgeoning field, seeks to comprehend the determinants of individual well-being within the urban context. This study investigated the impact of urban density on subjective emotional experiences with a focus on how urban density factors are operationalized in this research field. Using a remote desktop protocol coupled with eye tracking technology, we presented participants with realistic urban stimuli from Berlin, Germany, to assess gaze patterns and subjective responses. Following a two-step analytical approach, we first used a two-factorial design based on low/high built density and absent/present greenery, reflecting the common approach to operationalizing urban density. Subsequently, semantic segmentation of the stimuli was performed, providing a more fine-grained, continuous quantification of density factors allowing for a comparison of this approach with the first categorical analysis. Lastly, individual gaze patterns were exploratively analyzed to predict the impact of directed attention to different classes of urban density on subjective experiences. Dichotomous classification replicated previous findings indicating that high built density was associated with more negative subjective ratings compared to low density, and images lacking greenery received more negative ratings than those with green spaces. Using a continuous quantification of urban density factors and adding additional object classes (cars, people, sky) led to different results compared to the dichotomous approach. Gaze patterns only partially echoed subjective ratings, suggesting urban density factors influence ratings via a general urban scene impression without the need for directed attention towards them. These findings underscore the multifaceted influence of density factors on emotional appraisal in urban spaces, emphasizing the importance of chosen methods. The study demonstrates that fine-grained analyses of urban density factors enhance our understanding of how the urban environment affects the well-being of city dwellers.