Data for: Trees, grass or concrete? Influence of different types of environments on stress reduction

Despite studies on how natural environments affect human health and well-being, few have focused on how various types of vegetation affect people’s physiological and psychological well-being. To identify the restorative effects of different types of vegetation (i.e., trees and grass) in virtual environments on individuals, we designed and conducted a randomized controlled experiment with 90 university students. After participants took a math test amid noise for 5 min to induce stress, we randomly assigned each to one of three virtual reality environments (i.e., grass, trees, and concrete/gray) that we designed and in which they were immersed for 10 min. We measured skin conductance level throughout the test and immersion as well as positive and negative affect before the test, before immersion, and after immersion. Results of repeated measures analysis of variance with a general linear model comparing the restorative effects of the environmental treatments indicated that the grass environment improved positive affect better than the trees and gray environments. We also found that environments with natural elements had a stronger restorative effect than the gray environment, which confirms theory contending that unlearned factors of evolutionary origin influence affective responses to environments. Our findings provide valuable evidence that can guide the practical landscape planning and design of restorative environments for the public.

尽管现有研究已围绕自然环境对人类健康与福祉的影响展开探讨，但鲜有研究聚焦于不同类型植被对个体生理及心理福祉的作用。为明确虚拟环境中不同类型植被（即乔木与草本植物）对个体的恢复性效应，本研究设计并实施了一项包含90名大学生的随机对照实验。受试者先在噪声环境下完成5分钟数学测试以诱发应激状态，随后被随机分配至三种我们设计的虚拟现实环境之一（草本环境、乔木环境与混凝土/灰色环境），并沉浸体验10分钟。本研究全程记录了测试与沉浸体验阶段的皮肤电导水平（skin conductance level），并分别在测试前、沉浸体验前及沉浸体验后采集了受试者的积极情感与消极情感评分。采用一般线性模型（general linear model）开展重复测量方差分析，对比不同环境干预的恢复性效应，结果显示：草本环境对积极情感的改善效果优于乔木环境与灰色环境。本研究同时发现，带有自然元素的环境其恢复性效应显著强于灰色环境，这一结果验证了相关理论——即进化起源的非习得性因素会影响个体对环境的情感反应。本研究结果可为面向公众的恢复性环境景观规划与设计提供极具价值的参考依据。