Changes in visual interaction: Viewing a Japanese garden directly, through glass or as a projected image

This is a pilot study that examines how a person's gaze responds during the observation of a Japanese garden. Thirty-four participants were asked to viewed the same garden in three different ways: directly, through a pane of glass, or as a projected slide. We tracked their eye-movement during the first minutes of observation to observe different gaze strategies used in the different modalities of viewing. Our measurements show that when viewing the garden directly, participants focused on particular elements in their visual field. By contrast, when they viewed a slide they tended to scan the scene more and focus on all elements of the garden evenly. When viewing the real garden through a glass door, the responses were intermediate. Our results demonstrate that the visual evaluation of a space is different depending on the way in which the visual information is presented.