Effects of the Combination of Audio and Visual Factors on Mental Restoration in a Large-Scale Urban Greenway: Perspectives from Wuhan, China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Authors presented very interesting research in their manuscript. Paper is well structured, although typewriting should be checked (caps and spaces).  The research question is fine. Authors should elaborate more interconnection between Short-version Revised Restoration Scale and mental restoration, especially because it is evident that participants were not anxious, or even worse. 

Please explain more how you used The extraction of environmental elements from the sample photo (Fig 2) in regards to The extraction of main colors from the sample photo (Fig 3). It is not clear enough.

In paragraph Limitations and future study exploration of the soundscape in real space should be considered- no VR or Photos can really replace the nature in all its aspects (smells, memories, touch).

 

Author Response

We appreciate all of the valuable comments from the reviewers of our work. We have revised our manuscript, according to the reviewers’ comments, questions, and suggestions.

The following is the point-to-point revisions. (The  line numbers mentioned below are corresponding to those in the manuscript with track changes）

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Evaluation narrative:

This paper is interesting because it makes a valuable contribution to releasing the influence of place attachment on mental restoration in audio-visual environments.

 

One main weakness of the paper is the statement about the research gap. You mentioned that there is a need to discuss the impact of sounds on mental restoration further but you didn’t clarify why this topic needs further discussion and what has been done and what is still unclear. However, there are many previous studies that have explored the impacts of soundscape on perceived restoration. To demonstrate the research gap, there needs to be more literature cited to support this statement - this statement is not enough to support the motivation of your research goal because the goal of this research seems to be uncovering how the audio-visual combination affects mental restoration. Adding a few more citations to support how this study could advance the existing audio-visual perception research regarding the restorative benefit of natural environments is needed. The hypothesis regarding place attachment is not linked to the research purpose very well. 

 

The unclear description of photos, auditory data, and visual variables used in this research may make the method confusing to readers. First, the criteria for choosing the most representative 20 photos from the 507 photos is not clear. Additionally, you selected 10 photos from the 20 photos based on the rating scores but you didn’t clarify the reason why both the highest and lowest scores should be considered. Moreover, you didn’t explain why you conducted a survey to get the frequency of each sound type. Then, you directly decided on the sound types for this study. This process is too simplified. The open-access sound library is confusing because it has not been introduced in this paper. In the introduction section, you mentioned that the four common sounds at the East Lake Greenway were used as audio materials. Were the sound recordings of this library recorded in the study area? When were the sounds recorded? And does the recording time of the sounds match the time when the photos were taken in the study area? The sources of sound recordings are not accessible. Please make sure the links provided in Table 1 are linked to the right directories. In terms of visual variables, Figure 3 did show the pixelated image, which, however, includes more than four types of color. The way you summarized the main colors based on the converted image is confusing. Please briefly clarify how the main colors were computationally or manually selected. Even if Table 3 has shown the descriptions of physical characteristics, the calculation is not described. Please clarify if the variables were calculated as the number of pixels or the percentage of total pixels in an image. This can affect statistical results. The bar chart paired with each photo in Figure 4 shows that the variables seem to be on the same scale. Also strongly suggest making a clear bar chart with the numeric scale on the y-axis for each photo. Please clarify if those visual variables were standardized before statistical analysis. In addition, the definition of blue space is ambiguous because in the image (at the bottom of the right column) of Figure 4 the sky is also in blue whereas the water area is in green or other colors. You may replace ‘blue space’ with ‘water space’ because It seems like the blue space in this paper actually stands for the water area and the openness describes the area of the sky. Strongly suggest including a table that documents the plant species identified by the five landscape architects for each photo. 

 

Expect the discussion of the application of results regarding the place attachment in section 4.3. There could be more discussions on the application of the negative association between visual characteristics and acoustic environments because it is worth indicating what kind of audio-visual combination should be avoided in landscape design.

 

There are some grammar errors, which have to be corrected.

 

Specific suggestions:

Ln 83-84: ”however, how the sounds may affect people’s mental restoration requires further discussion” - suggest providing more references and adding more sentences to support the statement.

Ln 86: “We took actual photos as visual materials…” suggest deleting ‘actual’.

Ln 110: What are the criteria for choosing the images?

Ln 114-116: “We collected the ratings of 20 photos from 263 volunteers who has been to the East Lake Greenway, and selected 10 photos (shown in Figure 1 ) with the highest and lowest scores in each category as visual materials.” - “volunteers who has been” should be “volunteers, who have been”; suggest clarifying the reason why both the highest and lowest scores should be considered.

Ln 122: suggest introducing the open-access sound library.

Ln 125: suggest validating the links to sound recordings.

Ln 157-158: suggest clarifying how the main colors were selected.

Ln 158-159: suggest adding a table including identified plant species for each photo.

Ln 159-160: suggest clarifying the calculation of each visual characteristic and if the variables were standardized.

Ln 168: suggest redefining the blue visibility. What is blue space?

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

We appreciate all of the valuable comments from the reviewers of our work. We have revised our manuscript, according to the reviewers’ comments, questions, and suggestions.

The following is the point-to-point revisions. (The  line numbers mentioned below are corresponding to those in the manuscript with track changes）

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Authors accepted reviewers' suggestions and improved their MS so I can recommend it for publishing.