Natural environments, such as coastlines and green spaces, have been shown to improve indices of mental health more than urban or littered natural environments. However, it is still unknown whether coastal environments also alter physiological processes related to the stress-response, and how these effects differ from those of green, urban, and littered environments. Therefore, this study compared the physiological and psychological reactivity of beaches, beaches with litter, green spaces, and urban spaces. A randomized controlled cross-over experiment exposed each participant to two of these environments in virtual reality with sound (beaches and one other). Physiological measures included brain activity, cardiovascular functioning, respiration, muscle tension, skin conductance, and temperature, which were measured with the NeXus-10 MKII and software BioTrace+ from MindMedia. |
