The associative pathways linking intangible cultural heritage short videos to youth rural cultural identity: An experiment based on eye-tracking and structural equation modeling.

Against the background of digital media development and rural cultural revitalization, intangible cultural heritage (ICH) faces intergenerational inheritance challenges among young people. Existing relevant studies mainly adopt subjective analysis and lack objective quantitative exploration of its influencing mechanisms. This study combined eye-tracking experiments and questionnaire surveys, collecting 62 matched datasets and 418 valid questionnaires for empirical analysis. The results revealed that ICH short video characteristics positively affected youth's visual attention, which further triggered emotional resonance and cultural belonging; rural contact frequency played a positive moderating role in this process. Visual attention, emotional resonance and cultural belonging formed significant parallel and chain mediating effects between ICH short videos and rural cultural identity. This research clarifies the internal associative pathways and provides practical references for the digital communication of ICH and the cultivation of youth rural cultural identity.