Do urban park spatial features influence public emotional responses during jogging? Evidence from social media data

The emotional responses elicited by urban green spaces are vital to understanding their role in public health. However, evidence remains scarce on how the characteristics of these spaces affect people's emotional reactions during activities. Our study aims to investigate the mechanisms linking the spatial organization and morphological features of green spaces with emotional preferences during jogging activities. Utilizing photographs collected from the Flickr social media site, we quantified emotional responses during jogging through an online cognitive service and explored the relationship between emotions' probability, intensity, and evenness with green space characteristics. Our results highlight significant patterns and individual variations in emotional responses, indicating that females more frequently exhibit happiness, while males tend to maintain a neutral emotional state. Additionally, we identified significant correlations between the characteristics of urban green spaces and emotional responses during jogging. Notably, connectivity and integration within these spaces are positively linked with both the probability and uniformity of emotional responses. Proximity to water bodies not only increases the likelihood of emotional responses but also intensifies them. This research provides empirically validated insights into emotional reactions during physical activities and underscores the design quality considerations that urban planners and policymakers should account for when updating or planning green spaces. Our study offers guidance for evidence-based design of restorative environments, thereby enhancing the potential emotional health benefits of urban green spaces. Management implications: Improving the arrangement of blue spaces (water features) in parks can enhance outdoor joggers' positive emotional experiences. Examining how park visitors' emotions during outdoor jogging correlate with park spatial characteristics can guide the redevelopment and redesign of parks to enrich visitors' recreational experiences. The emotional differences observed among park visitors of different genders provide insights into how park environmental design and management can cater to diverse visitor preferences and needs.