Exploring the Restorative Properties of Urban and Nature Settings Using Virtual Reality

In this paper we present an empirical study that provides strong evidence suggesting that the restorative properties of nature settings seen in the real-world also exist within virtual reality. Participants were induced with stress and were then randomly assigned to explore one of three virtual environments for ten minutes. The three environments included a tropical island, a virtual recreation of Shibuya from Tokyo Japan, and an abstract geometric environment. Physiological and self-report measures of emotional state and stress were taken at baseline, pre-virtual reality, and post-virtual reality. Results suggest that virtual nature promotes improvement in emotional state and reductions in stress, and that virtual reality is an effective tool for exploring psychological and physiological responses to architectural design in a lab setting.