Durations of virtual exposure to built and natural landscapes impact self-reported stress recovery: evidence from three countries

Abstract

Exposure to natural landscapes can benefit human health. However, several knowledge gaps remain regarding the impacts of duration and cultural differences on the health benefits of nature. If these gaps are filled, designers and planners can better design landscapes for stress recovery. This study examined the effects of durations of virtual exposure to the built and natural environments across three countries using an experimental design. Two-hundred and seventy people from USA, Taiwan, and Thailand were induced with an acute stressor and then randomly assigned to watch 360° videos of urban or natural landscapes for 1, 5, or 15 min. Self-reported stress recovery data were collected before and after the exposure. The results suggested that gender and duration of exposure to virtual natural landscapes impacted stress recovery. Female participants recovered from stress more when exposed to the virtual natural landscapes than urban landscapes. Among those participants who were exposed to virtual natural landscapes, 5 min of exposure resulted in greater stress recovery than shorter or longer durations of exposure. Perceived familiarity did not influence the extent of stress recovery. These findings support previous research on how nature exposure is related to stress recovery and varies by dosage, leading to better understanding toward landscape design. Future studies should explore other measures of stress, different landscape designs, participants’ immersion, and levels of control in simulated nature scenes.

The effect of simulated natural environments in virtual reality and 2D video to reduce stress

“…However, it cannot be verified because there was no real-time measurement while the scale was filled in. Third, Suppakittpaisarn et al (2023), who did the first study comparing virtual reality exposure duration in the restoration context, found that a 5 min dose of virtual nature produced more excellent stress recovery than 1 or 15 min. They explained that the intercorrelation between time and the outcome looked like a bell-shaped pattern, which was suggested by Shanahan et al (2016).…”

“…Several studies discovered the role of different participants' geographical locations in response to environmental stimuli (Ji et al, 2000;Faggi et al, 2017). In addition, a restorative study found that the country difference significantly affected the participant's stress recovery (Suppakittpaisarn et al, 2023). It shows that the geographical factor impacts the individual response to environmental stimuli.…”

Complementarity with Real Forests: A Conceptual Framework and Narrative Review of Multidimensional Effects in Virtual Forests

“…CG-VR is highly interactive; however, this medium requires computer graphics skills for 3D modeling, and importantly, 360-VR is not an effective way to create a 3D model. VR, a non-interactive virtual landscape, does not fully mimic natural experiences, and longer experiments may also affect the participants' perception of control and boredom [75].…”

“…In addition to demographic characteristics such as age, sex, and education, the current study incorporates connections to nature and technology, as well as life experiences. The aspect of connection to nature includes nature connectedness [86,101,102], attitudes towards green spaces [103], landscape familiarity [75], nature experiences, and frequency of visiting nature [86,94,104]. The aspects of connection to technology, that is, familiarity with computers and VR, include VR experiences [50,56,67,93,100,105], gaming experiences [54], and knowledge of VR [106].…”

Daily exposure to virtual nature reduces symptoms of anxiety in college students

“…Anxiety can be further differentiated between anxious arousal, defined as physiological hyperarousal as well as feelings of panic and tension, and anxious apprehension, defined as chronic worry with verbal dwelling commonly on possible negative outcomes of future events 27 . Our daily intervention was limited to 4-min, which may elicit larger effects than longer durations 30 . Relatedly, we extended the study period over multiple weeks to evaluate longer-term exposures and outcomes.…”