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The Calming Effects of Forest Pictures

Accepted submission by hubie at 2021-02-19 02:12:56 from the Pictures-from-the-wood-make-you-feel-much-better dept.
Science

From a recent Scientific Reports paper: [nature.com]

Nowadays, individuals spend more and more time in artificially designed living spaces, in particular, humans spend up to 90% indoors. This tendency has led to an isolation of individuals from regular contact with nature which has a negative impact on their mental and physical health. Several studies have demonstrated that such artificial stimulation and being in purely human-generated environments can lead to mental fatigue as well as a loss of vitality and health.

These negative effects can be reduced by means engaging in interactions with nature. There is evidence to suggest that natural environments have a positive influence on human psychology, physiology, and cognition. According to the Attention Restoration Theory [wikipedia.org] (ART), natural environments capture less cognitive resources, and therefore, allow an interruption of attention-grabbing tasks inherent in urban environments and thus, elicit attention restoration and recovery from mental fatigue. Natural elements such as green landscapes and flowing waters have a calming effect on physiological arousal. One of the long-term effects of access to nature is a positive attitude towards life and an increased satisfaction with one’s own home, one’s own work and generally one’s own life.

Researchers from Germanay subjected subjects to forest and urban scenes via a head-mounted display. They presented the scenes as pictures and as 360-degree videos. They found that forest scenes had a positive effect on cognition and urban scenes disturbed mood. Interestingly they found that the photos of either urban or forest environments were more effective in reducing physiological arousal compared to the immersive videos. So it seems it is less stressful to look at a forest than to be in the middle of one.

Mostajeran, F., Krzikawski, J., Steinicke, F. et al. Effects of exposure to immersive videos and photo slideshows of forest and urban environments [open]. Sci Rep 11, 3994 (2021).
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-83277-y [doi.org]

[EXTENDED COPY]

Abstract
A large number of studies have demonstrated the benefits of natural environments on people’s health and well-being. For people who have limited access to nature (e.g., elderly in nursing homes, hospital patients, or jail inmates), virtual representations may provide an alternative to benefit from the illusion of a natural environment. For this purpose and in most previous studies, conventional photos of nature have been used. Immersive virtual reality (VR) environments, however, can induce a higher sense of presence compared to conventional photos. Whether this higher sense of presence leads to increased positive impacts of virtual nature exposure is the main research question of this study. Therefore, we compared exposure to a forest and an urban virtual environment in terms of their respective impact on mood, stress, physiological reactions, and cognition. The environments were presented via a head-mounted display as (1) conventional photo slideshows or (2) 360∘ videos. The results show that the forest environment had a positive effect on cognition and the urban environment disturbed mood regardless of the mode of presentation. In addition, photos of either urban or forest environment were both more effective in reducing physiological arousal compared to immersive 360∘ videos.


Original Submission