Landscape plantings provide depth of scene. The symmetrical planting can provide depth by its clear axis, which can be found in geomantic style gardens. Mean while asymmetrical planting is considered to provide depth by hiding plants with each other, which is popular in Japanese gardens. Pruned plants are considered to allow viewer look through it, thus elicit viewer’s feeling of depth. But the mechanism behind still remains in unclear. This study examined the visual cognitive characteristics of different arrangement of landscape plantings in order to clarify how planting arrangement affect people’s physiological and psychological responses. For this purpose, eye-movement and brain blood flow was recoded when 37 participants were viewing four types of plantings (1. pruned trees with symmetrical arrangement, 2. unpruned trees with symmetrical arrangement, 3. pruned trees with asymmetrical arrangement, 4. unpruned trees with asymmetrical arrangement). The results showed, participants tended to view the middle part of symmetrical arrangement patterns and view the lower part of asymmetrical arrangement patterns. Moreover, blood flow of female participants was soothed in pre-frontal cortex when they were viewing symmetrical arrangement patterns, while, when viewing pruned tress, it was found that blood flow in primary somatosensory cortex and primary motor cortex was soothed.
