| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立中興大學 === 農村規劃研究所 === 97 === A natural environment has a variety of benefits on human psychology. In recent years, many scholars have pointed out that there are four major psychological benefits, including comfort, landscape preferences, attention restoration and health. Scholars have also pointed out a strong link between landscape preference and attention restoration, and that a natural environment makes people feel comfortable and is beneficial to human health. We can infer from the above-mentioned statements that the four psychological responses are closely related to one another. A literature review, however, indicates that the correlation between landscape preference and attention restoration has been explained and discussed much more than that between the other aspects. On the other hand, in-depth studies on the interactions among the four psychological benefits are lacking. Consequently, this study aims to explore the interactive relationships among the four psychological benefits (comfort level, landscape preference, attention restoration and health level) of a nature-based tourism setting.
In this study the researcher personally visited Hui-sun Forest Park in Nantou County to conduct a questionnaire survey on tourists’ perceptions. A total of 470 valid questionnaires were obtained. A basic analysis of the questionnaires was done with descriptive statistics, followed by reliability analysis. Then One-way ANOVA was used to analyze the perceptional differences each individual’s socioeconomic status made on the four psychological benefits. A correlation analysis was conducted to examine the interactive relationships among the four psychological benefits. Furthermore, SEM was used to confirm the interactive model of the four psychological benefits and compare in depth the differences that genders and ages had on the four benefits.
The findings revealed that with regard to levels of environmental comfort, the most important factor of the overall comfort level was tourists’ perception of temperatures in the natural tourist area, followed by perception of wind speed, sound volume, humidity and intensity of illumination. With regard to landscape preference, the mysterious perception of the natural tourist area is the most important factor that affected the overall landscape preference, followed by complexity, coherence and legibility. As for attention restoration, the compatibility of the natural environment is the most intensely perceived variable for the tourists, followed by fascination, extent and being away. Lastly, concerning levels of environmental health, the most perceived benefits were fatigue reduction and vitalization of the natural environment, followed by concentration enhancement and pacification of the mind.
The interactive model of comfort level, landscape preference, attention restoration and health level mentioned in this study was verified after analyses and confirmation were conducted. The correlations among the four overall psychological benefits were all positive. In the model, the interactive relationship between landscape preference and attention restoration was the strongest, followed by that between attention restoration and health level. Meanwhile, the relationship was the weakest between landscape preference and health level. The study further compared the differences varied age groups of both genders made on the interactive relationships among the four benefits. The findings suggested that male tourists had a higher interactive model of comfort level vs. landscape preference, and of landscape preference vs. health level than female tourists. Moreover, tourists over the age of 30 experienced better interactive relationships between comfort level and health, comfort level and attention restoration than those aged from 0 to 29. To sum up, the findings of this study have demonstrated the interactive relationships among the four psychological benefits and revealed that depending on the gender and age, the relationships can vary among the four benefits.
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