Eye-tracking and place attachment: Visual and emotional engagement in higher education atrium spaces

This paper presents an exploratory investigation into how atrium design is associated with users' visual and emotional experiences. Focussing on spatial configuration and material qualities, the study integrates wearable eye-tracking with place attachment assessment to examine how users engage with real atrium environments. Thirty university students participated in on-site eye-tracking experiments measuring fixation duration, visit count, pupil diameter and time to first fixation, followed by a questionnaire on spatial familiarity and place attachment. Statistical comparisons and a random forest model were used to identify behavioural differences and indicative predictive patterns. Results suggest that participants with higher place attachment and familiarity exhibited more focussed attention, longer fixations and larger pupil diameters, potentially reflecting deeper emotional engagement. In contrast, low attachment and unfamiliar users demonstrated more exploratory and dispersed gaze patterns. The random forest classifier achieved an average accuracy of 62.6% in distinguishing high and low place attachment groups, indicating preliminary potential for linking gaze features, particularly pupil diameter and early visual attention, to emotional engagement. These findings underscore the value of visual metrics and psychological measures to understand how atrium design supports user experiences. They provide practical insights for architects seeking to enhance emotional connection through spatial openness and material articulation in higher-education environments.