The restorative effects of campus landscape biodiversity: Assessing visual and auditory perceptions among university students

Abstract

Campus greenness reportedly has a restorative effect on university students by reducing stress and fatigue. This study questioned whether more biodiverse green-spaces have more restorative effects than conventional lawns in campus environments. Unlike most previous studies solely relying on visual stimuli, this study focused on the effect of multisensory (visual and auditory) stimuli on mental restoration, which has been understudied. This study used a four-group pre-posttest-randomized experiment design (2 × 2 factorial design), and a 360-degree view video via an online platform survey. A total of 319 university students were randomly assigned to four experimental settings characterized by: (1) low-biodiversity with no sound, (2) high-biodiversity with no sound, (3) low-biodiversity with sound, and (4) high-biodiversity with sound. The restorative status and mood status at pre-intervention and post-intervention were evaluated using the restorative state scale (RSS) and the Short Form of The Profile of Mood States (POMS-SF). The results indicated that neither the level of biodiversity nor natural sound had a significant effect on restorative and mood states. However, there was a statistically significant interaction effect between auditory and visual stimuli in mood states. The presence of natural sound with a high biodiversity environment showed lower negative mood states than the absence of natural sound. Perceived biodiversity was also examined to clarify the possible association with these psychological responses. The results indicated that perceived plant species richness is positively associated with negative mood states. These discrepancies may be explained by poor biodiversity identification. The findings of this study add to a small but growing literature that indicates that a biodiverse campus environment leads to restorative effects for university students.