A Deep Learning Framework for Emotion Recognition and Semantic Interpretation of Social Media Images in Urban Parks: The ULEAF Approach

This study proposes the Urban Landscape Emotion Analysis Framework (ULEAF) based on images of urban parks shared on social media. This framework integrates an emotion recognition module driven by a convolutional neural network (ConvNeXt Tiny) with a semantic extraction module supported by multimodal semantic matching models (CLIP and DeepSentiBank ANP lexicon). It constructs a systematic analysis pathway from semantic understanding to emotional perception, effectively overcoming the limitations of traditional research methods. Results indicate that positive emotion images predominantly correlate with nature, health, and openness, while negative emotion images are closely associated with the characteristics of decay, abandonment, and oppression, as well as loneliness and calmness, estrangement and disharmony, and gloom and bleakness. Findings reveal trends consistent with prior research, further validating the stable association between urban landscape visual features and emotional perception. The analytical framework developed in this study facilitates the systematic revelation of semantic characteristics and affective perception mechanisms in large-scale urban park imagery, providing scientific reference for optimizing urban park landscapes and implementing emotion-oriented design.