Homeliness in Elderly Care Facility Interiors: Older Adults’ Visual Attention and Environmental Appraisal
This study reveals that while total visual attention metrics do not differentiate homeliness levels in elderly care facilities, distinct allocation patterns toward domestic versus functional cues, combined with environmental perception, are crucial for understanding and designing home-like interiors for older adults.
Original paper licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). This is an AI-generated explanation of the paper below. It is not written or endorsed by the authors. For technical accuracy, refer to the original paper. Read full disclaimer
For decades, the design of places where older adults live has been driven by a simple, practical question: how do we keep them safe and healthy? Architects and planners have focused on clear hallways, easy-to-reach call buttons, and rooms that are efficient for nurses to clean. But as the population ages, a deeper question has emerged. It is no longer enough to simply house older people; we must ask how they feel while living there. The concept of "homeliness" has moved to the center of this conversation. It is not just about making a room look like a living room with a sofa and a rug. True homeliness is a feeling of belonging, a sense that the space supports the life a person has always lived, rather than just the care they now need. It is the difference between a place where one is managed and a place where one lives. Understanding this feeling is difficult because it is internal and personal. We cannot simply ask someone if a room feels like home and trust the answer, because people often struggle to explain exactly what makes a space feel welcoming or cold. To solve this, researchers are beginning to look at what people actually do when they look at a room, rather than just what they say about it.
A team of researchers at Xi'an Jiaotong University in China set out to uncover the visual secrets of homeliness in elderly care facilities. They wanted to know exactly what older adults look at when they enter a room, and whether looking at something longer means they like it more. To find the answer, they invited thirty older adults, all living in their own homes, to participate in a unique experiment. The researchers showed these participants hundreds of photographs of real rooms inside care facilities. These rooms fell into three main categories: private bedrooms, shared living areas where people gather, and the hallways that connect everything. The participants wore special glasses equipped with cameras that tracked their eyes with high precision. As they looked at each photo for fifteen seconds, the cameras recorded exactly where their gaze landed, how long they stayed there, and how often they returned to look at the same spot.
The researchers did not stop at just watching the eyes. Immediately after viewing the images, the participants rated how much each room felt like a home. They also answered questions about specific features, such as the furniture, the colors, and whether the room felt safe or inviting. By combining the eye-tracking data with these ratings, the team could see the full picture: what caught the eye, and what that eye contact actually meant. They were particularly interested in whether a room that felt like a home would make people look at it differently than a room that felt like a hospital.
The results challenged a common assumption. Many people believe that if a room feels like home, people will naturally spend more time looking at it. The study found that this is not true. The total amount of time older adults spent looking at a room did not change based on whether the room felt like a home or a facility. A room that felt very institutional and a room that felt very cozy received roughly the same amount of visual attention overall. This means that simply measuring how long someone looks at a space cannot tell us if they like it. The difference lay not in the quantity of attention, but in the quality of what they were looking at.
When the researchers broke down the images into smaller parts, a clear pattern emerged. In the private bedrooms, the rooms that felt most like home were the ones where the bed did not dominate the view. In the less cozy rooms, the bed, along with wheelchairs and medical equipment, took up the center of the visual field. These items drew the eye, but they did not create a feeling of warmth. In contrast, the high-homeliness bedrooms featured windows with views of the outside world, comfortable chairs, and tables. The participants' eyes kept returning to these windows and the everyday furniture. The repeated glances at the window suggested a desire to connect with the world outside, a key ingredient in feeling at home. The bed was still there, but it was no longer the only thing in the room.
In the shared living areas, the findings were even more distinct. The most home-like spaces were filled with greenery, wooden furniture, and sofas arranged in small, intimate groups. The participants' eyes were drawn to these natural elements and comfortable seating. They looked at these features longer and more often than at the standardized tables and chairs found in the less cozy rooms. Interestingly, the large, uniform rows of tables and chairs that are common in many care facilities actually drew the eye, but in a way that did not correlate with a feeling of home. These arrangements made it easy for people to see the furniture, but they signaled a place for collective, scheduled activities rather than a place for personal choice and relaxation. The study showed that a room can be visually busy and full of things to look at, yet still feel cold and institutional.
The hallways, often seen as mere passageways, also held the key to homeliness. In the less welcoming corridors, the eyes were drawn to the ends of the hall, the door frames, and the signs pointing the way. These features are necessary for safety and direction, but they create a sense of movement and transition rather than staying. In the most home-like corridors, the visual attention was distributed differently. The participants looked at plants, artwork, and small seating areas placed along the path. These elements broke up the long, straight lines of the hallway, creating little stops where a person could pause and rest. The presence of greenery and comfortable furniture along the route made the journey feel less like a march through a facility and more like a walk through a home.
The study also revealed a crucial insight about how we interpret what people see. The researchers found that just because an older adult looks at something for a long time, it does not mean they enjoy it. Sometimes, people look longer at things because they are confused, because the object stands out in a jarring way, or because they are trying to figure out how a piece of equipment works. In the low-homeliness rooms, the medical equipment and institutional signs often grabbed attention, but the participants did not rate those rooms as feeling like home. This distinction is vital. It means that designers cannot simply fill a room with things that catch the eye. They must ensure that the things people look at are things that support a sense of life and continuity.
Ultimately, the research suggests that creating a home-like environment is not about copying the look of a house. It is about supporting the daily life of the person living there. In a private room, this means ensuring that the space allows for reading, visiting, and looking out the window, not just sleeping and receiving care. In a shared space, it means offering a variety of places to sit and interact, rather than just rows of chairs for group meals. In a hallway, it means creating a path that offers moments of rest and connection with nature, rather than just a clear line to a destination. The study concludes that homeliness is not a visual style, but a functional reality. It is the ability of a space to let an older person continue their life, rather than just exist within a system of care. By understanding where older adults look and what those glances mean, designers can move beyond simple decoration to create environments that truly feel like home.
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