Reliability statistics.

Rural street spaces serve as primary venues for communal activities, yet emotion-based design in these spaces remains underexplored. This study delineates three typical scales of rural street spaces in China northern plains region, utilizing eye-tracking technology, investigates the constituent elements and materials of various optimized design schemes, analyzing people’s emotional perceptions of different elements and materials. The results indicate that: (1) narrower streets evoke a greater sense of security among individuals; (2) an increased variety and quantity of paving materials, landscape flower beds, seating areas, and public facilities heighten people’s visual interest, enhancing the spatial publicness and safety; (3) higher coverage of green landscape relaxes visual perceptions, leading individuals to linger and dwell in the space. Consequently, through judicious design of scale, constituent elements, and materials, rural street spaces can be effectively imbued with emotional expressions, thereby elevating the spatial quality of rural street spaces to meet people’s emotional needs.