Virtual Nature: Investigating The Effect of Biomass on Immersive Virtual Reality Forest Bathing Applications For Stress Reduction

Exposure to natural environments offers an array of mental health benefits. Virtual reality provides simulated experiences of being in nature when outdoor access is limited. Previous studies on virtual nature have focused mainly on single "doses" of virtual nature. The effects of repeated exposure remain poorly understood. Motivated by this gap, we studied the influence of a daily virtual nature intervention on symptoms of anxiety, depression, and an underlying cause of poor mental health: rumination. Forty college students (58% non-Hispanic White, median age = 19) were recruited from two U.S. universities and randomly assigned to the intervention or control group. Over several weeks, anxious arousal (panic) and anxious apprehension (worry) decreased with virtual nature exposure. Participants identifying as women, past VR users, experienced with the outdoors, and engaged with the beauty in nature benefited particularly strongly from virtual nature. Virtual nature did not help symptoms of anhedonic depression or rumination. Further research is necessary to distinguish when and for whom virtual nature interventions impact mental health outcomes.

Interaction with nature in virtual reality has been shown to induce similar restorative benefits as interaction with real-life nature. Drawing from Attention restoration theory, restorative benefits from being in virtual nature are likely to be improved through greater active engagement techniques with specific virtual natural features. Gamification is the process of adding game design elements in non-game scenarios in order to improve engagement and motivation. In the present pilot study, six participants completed either a gamified interaction with virtual nature, one where game design elements had been added in order to improve engagement with specific virtual nature features and thus possibly further facilitating sustained attention and self-reported restoration, having them pick plants and gain rewards such as a higher level in return, or a non-gamified task, one where they explored the virtual nature environment and looked at plants at their own pace without any game design elements. Gamified interaction improved sustained attention restoration more than non-gamified interaction. Additionally, gamified interaction was also shown to have reduced negative effect in self-reported restoration more than non-gamified interaction. While there are still several limitations, gamified interaction with virtual nature seems to offer vast potential as an engagement technique in improving sustained attention and self-reported restoration.

BackgroundWith the global trend of urbanization, there are increasing reports of a possible association between decreased exposure to nature and increased occurrence of mental disorders. New 360° virtual reality (VR) technology using smartphones and portable VR glasses can overcome spatial and temporal limitations to help people deal with mental fatigue in everyday life.ObjectiveOn the basis of attention restoration theory (ART), this study aimed to investigate whether the amplitude of the mismatch negativity (MMN)/P3a complex could act as an event-related potential (ERP) biomarker of involuntary attention restoration during exposure to 360° virtual nature in healthy young adults with different levels of restorative VR experience.MethodsA total of 40 healthy adults completed prequestionnaires on demographics and simulator sickness and postquestionnaires on simulator sickness and perceived restorativeness before and after exposure to virtual nature, respectively. During the VR exposure, brain activity was measured by electroencephalography as participants were asked to conduct a 2-tone passive auditory oddball task.ResultsThe amplitude and latency of the MMN/P3a complex were compared between individuals reporting a highly restorative experience and those reporting a less restorative experience. Although viewing a virtual nature environment, the high restorative group (N=19) exhibited significantly reduced P3a amplitudes compared with the low restorative group (N=20; t38=2.57; P=.02; d=0.59). Particularly, a moderate but significant negative correlation was found between the self-reported restorativeness scores and the P3a amplitudes at the fronto-central region (r=−.38; P=.02). However, the latency of the MMN/P3a complex did not significantly differ between the 2 groups (auditory mismatch negativity: t38=−1.47; P=.15 and P3a: t38=−0.31; P=.76).ConclusionsConsidering individuals’ restorative experience, the amplitude of the fronto-central MMN/P3a complex can potentially be employed as a distinct ERP component of interest in involuntary attention restoration during virtual nature experience in healthy young adults. The findings for the 360° virtual nature experience seem to be consistent with those of previous ERP studies on the effects of meditation practice. This study extends the findings of previous ART and ERP studies of real-world meditation, restoration, and mental fatigue management into the virtual world created by mobile phone–based VR glasses and 360° video content.

Virtual nature research has emerged as a prominent and captivating study area, gaining much attention for its profound potential to enhance well-being. This literature review aimed to expand prior reviews of virtual nature experiences on psychological and physiological well-being in two ways: summarizing how four factors may moderate the beneficial effects of virtual nature and reporting the risk of bias in this body of literature. Searches for peer-reviewed research articles were conducted in Web of Science and Scopus and manually identified, returning 78 relevant empirical studies published between 2010 and 2023. The assessment of bias was conducted utilizing Cochrane’s RoB 2 and ROBINS-I tools. The four moderators examined were duration of exposure (i.e., ≤5 min, 5–10 min, ≥10 min), type of virtual nature (i.e., green space, blue space), sample characteristics (i.e., age, health status), and immersion level (i.e., virtual reality [VR], 2D screens). We found limited evidence for the impact of the first three moderators but stronger evidence for higher levels of immersion showing stronger benefits. All studies were found to have a moderate to high risk of bias, mostly related to the subjective measurement of outcomes. Future research should prioritize studying tailored virtual nature interventions and their long-term effects among diverse participants and different types of virtual environments, as well as investigating the influence of presence and immersion levels in virtual settings. These efforts will provide further insights into the underlying mechanisms of the benefits derived from virtual nature exposure.

Stress-related disorders are increasing because of work load, forces in teamwork, surroundings pressures and health related conditions. Thus, to avoid people living under heavy stress and develop more severe stress-related disorders, different internet and applications of stress management interventions are offered. Mobile applications with self-assessed health, burnout-scores and well-being are commonly used as outcome measures. Few studies have used sickleave to compare effects of stress interventions. A new approach is to use nature and garden in a multimodal stress management context. This study aimed to explore the effects of immersive and non-immersive games application by using nature theme virtual stress therapy in reducing stress level. Two weeks' of experiments had involved 18 participants. Nine (9) of them were invited to join the first experiment which focused on immersive virtual reality (VR) experience. Their Blood Volume Pulse with Heart Rate (BVP+HR) and Skin Conductance (SC) were recorded using BioGraph Infiniti Biofeedback System that comes with three (3) sensors attached to the fingers. The second experiment were joined by another nine (9) participants. This experiment was testing on non-immersive desktop control experience. The same protocol measurements were taken which are BVP+HR and SC. Participants were given the experience to feel and get carried into the virtual nature as a therapy so that they will reduce stress. The result of this study points to whether immersive or non-immersive VR display using nature theme virtual therapy would reduce individuals stress level. After conducted series of experiments, results showed that both immersive and non-immersive VR display reduced stress level. However, participants were satisfied of using the immersive version as it provided a 360 degree of viewing, immersed experiences and feeling engaged. Thus, this showed and proved that applications developed with nature theme affect successfully reduce stress level no matter it is put in immersive or non-immersive display.

Virtual nature experiences can improve physiological and psychological well-being. Although there is ample research on the positive effects of nature, both in virtual and physical settings, we know little about potential moderators of restoration effects in virtual reality settings. According to theories of needs and control beliefs, it is plausible to assume that control over one’s actions affects how people respond to nature experiences. In this virtual reality (VR) experiment, 64 participants either actively navigated through a VR landscape or they were navigated by the experimenter. We measured their perceived stress, mood, and vitality before and after the VR experience as well as the subjective restoration outcome and the perceived restorativeness of the landscape afterwards. Results revealed that participants’ positive affective states increased after the VR experience, regardless of control. There was a main effect such that participants reported lower stress after the VR experience; however, this was qualified by an interaction showing that this result was only the case in the no control condition. These results unexpectedly suggest that active VR experiences may be more stressful than passive ones, opening pathways for future research on how handling of and navigating in VR can attenuate the effects of virtual nature.

Modernity is facing a pronounced deficit of the real, prompting philosophy to undertake efforts to ‘unmask’ the nature of virtuality. The scope of the concept of virtual reality is continually expanding, with its content allegedly characterized as ‘invalid’ and/or ‘simulative’. In addition to that, the ideas of the real and the virtual are converging in a diffusive process. This article proposes a framework for understanding virtuality that utilizes classical ontological concepts to examine the practical mediation between reality and virtual reality. The first section discusses the theoretical challenges that arise in conceptualizing virtual reality. It concludes that virtual reality is more an act of realization manifested through the activities of both ontological and ontic subject, rather than a distinct entity. The second section analyzes individuals as subjects of such realization following Nikolai A. Nosov's research into virtual psychology. It also emphasizes the importance of those systems through which reality undergoes virtualization. The third section introduces the concept of a virtuality machine to analyze these mediators facilitating the transition from the constant to virtual reality. Since media philosophy tends to posit that media is far from being neutral, this section explores various media/mediators of virtuality machines: including chemical, computational, and musical. The author examines both the potential threats posed by virtuality machines and their promising applications. The concluding section proposes that a virtuality machine has the potential to evolve into a virtus machine, a tool that could enhance rather than alienate human nature.

Virtual nature exposure has emerged as an effective method for promoting pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors, also due to the increased emotional connection with nature itself. However, the role played by complex emotions elicited by virtual nature, such as awe, needs to be fully elucidated. Awe is an emotion stemming from vast stimuli, including nature, and virtual reality (VR) emerged as an effective medium to elicit it. One hundred nineteen participants were exposed to either one of four VR environments: (a) an awe-inspiring virtual nature, (b) a non-natural awe-inspiring virtual scenario, (c) a non-awe-inspiring virtual nature, (d) a non-natural non-awe-inspiring scenario. Pro-environmental attitudes, intentions, discrete emotions, and affect were measured and compared across the different conditions. Two ad hoc tasks were developed to measure two pro-environmental behaviors after each VR exposure. Participants were invited to sign a real petition against plastic production, consumption, and in favor of plastic recycling (a personally engaging behavior), and to take flyers to spread the word on the petition to friends and acquaintances (a socially engaging behavior). Awe-inspiring virtual nature resulted in a significantly increased number of flyers taken by participants (vs. control). Disposition toward the protection of the environment, positive emotional affect, and condition significantly correlated with the number of flyers taken. These results indicated that awe-inspiring virtual nature can influence socially engaging pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors but not personally engaging ones.

Large populations worldwide have been deprived from nature experiences due to mass quarantines and lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic, and face a looming mental health crisis. Virtual reality offers a safe and practical solution to increase nature exposure. This research examined the effects of virtual nature using a within-subject design with young adults (Study 1) and senior citizens (Study 2). Results from the young adult sample showed that walking in a virtual forest reduced negative affect due to enhanced nature connectedness, and reduced stress measured by heart rate. Consistently, the senior citizen sample reported improved positive affect due to enhanced nature connectedness after the virtual nature walk. Our findings unveil the underlying mechanism of how virtual nature may improve psychological well-being and demonstrated how virtual nature can be used as an intervention to promote mental health.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10055-021-00604-4.

With rising urban stress and limited access to restorative natural environments, scholars have increasingly explored virtual nature as an emerging pathway for emotional recovery and stress communication. This meta-analytic review synthesizes current empirical findings on virtual nature interventions, including virtual reality (VR) forest environments, to evaluate their effectiveness in enhancing positive emotion and alleviating stress in academic and therapeutic contexts. Across the reviewed studies, virtual nature exposure reliably contributes to short-term emotional benefits, such as reduced physiological arousal, lower perceived stress, and improved affective states. Interventions that integrate guided therapeutic elements—such as mindfulness, reflective tasks, or stress-communication prompts—tend to yield stronger and more sustainable psychological outcomes than passive exposure alone. Evidence also suggests that water-enriched landscapes and immersive sensory designs may amplify restorative effects. However, the heterogeneity in intervention design, duration, and measurement tools remains a barrier to cumulative theory-building. Overall, virtual nature represents a promising modality for scalable emotional well-being interventions, and future research should prioritize standardized protocols, long-term impact tracking, and deeper investigation into communication mechanisms that translate virtual experiences into meaningful stress recovery in academic populations.

Natural environment experiences in virtual reality (VR) can be a feasible option for people unable to connect with real nature. Existing research mostly focuses on health and emotional advantages of the "virtual nature" therapy, but studies of its neuropsychological effects related to visual perception are rare. In our experiment, 20 subjects watched nature-related video content in VR headsets (3D condition) and on a computer screen (2D condition). In addition to the gender factor, we considered the individual Environmental Identity Index (EID) and collected the self-assessment of the emotional state per the components of Valence, Arousal, and Dominance in each experimental condition. Besides the psychometric data, we also registered brainwave activity (EEG) and analyzed it with the 7 frequency bands. For EID, which was considerably higher in women, we found significant positive correlation with Valence (i.e., beneficial effect of the natural stimuli on the psycho-emotional status). At the same time, the analysis of the EEG data suggests a considerable impact of the VR immersion itself, with higher relaxation alpha effect in 3D vs. 2D condition in men. The novel and most pronounced effect of the gender factor was found in the relation between the EID and the EEG powers in the high-frequency bands-that is, positive correlation of these variables in women (0.64 < Rs < 0.74) but negative correlation in men (-0.66 < Rs < -0.72). Our results imply individually different and gender-dependent effects of the natural stimulus in VR. Correspondingly, the video and VR content development should consider this and aim to provide a user characteristics-tailored experience.

Previous research regarding the potential benefits of exposing individuals to surrogate nature (photographs and videos) has found that such immersion results in restorative effects such as increased positive affect, decreased negative affect, and decreased stress. In the current experiment, we examined whether immersion in a virtual computer-generated nature setting could produce restorative effects. Twenty-two participants were equally divided between two conditions, while controlling for gender. In each condition, participants performed a stress-induction task, and were then immersed in virtual reality (VR) for 10 minutes. The control condition featured a slide show in VR, and the nature experimental condition featured an active exploration of a virtual forest. Participants in the nature condition were found to exhibit increased positive affect and decreased stress after immersion in VR when compared to those in the control condition. The results suggest that immersion in virtual nature settings has similar beneficial effects as exposure to surrogate nature. These results also suggest that VR can be used as a tool to study and understand restorative effects.

Purpose Human-nature interactions, including visitation of nature and nature connectedness (NC), a psychological construct defining an individual’s cognitive and affective connection with the natural world, are associated with a variety of health and well-being indicators. University students often experience high levels of stress and mental health challenges, while having little access to and few opportunities to interact with nature. This randomized controlled trial explored the effectiveness of a virtual nature intervention, delivered either through two-dimensional (2D) or immersive virtual reality (VR) devices, in eliciting increased NC and the likelihood of visiting a naturalistic location among university students. Methods Thirty-eight university students (age 24.7±5.4 year) were randomized into two groups and viewed a video of a naturalistic location in the vicinity of the university campus either through VR or 2D devices. Further, participants received information about the naturalistic location and were invited to an organized hiking tour in that location. Pre- and post-assessment of NC, intention to engage in active nature visits, intention to visit the location viewed in VR or 2D, and intention to participate in the hiking tour were collected. Additionally, participation in the hiking tour was recorded. Results A mixed between-within subjects ANOVA showed that both conditions significantly improved NC (F1,35 = 293.302; p &amp;lt; 0.001), intention to visit the location (F1,36 = 18.848; p &amp;lt; 0.001), and intention to participate in the hiking tour (F1,36 = 12.450; p &amp;lt; 0.001), but did not improve intention to engage in active nature visits, with no significant differences between the type of virtual nature exposures (VR vs. 2D). Six (16.7%) students participated in the organized tour, three from each condition. The type of virtual nature exposure was not a significant predictor for participating in the tour. Conclusions This study provides evidence of the potential of virtual nature exposure in promoting NC and visitation of nature among university students, regardless of the technology employed (VR or 2D). More research is needed to better understand the impact of such types of intervention in supporting behavior changes and health in this population.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES:Virtual reality can have a modulatory action on pain and the autonomic nervous system.This study sought to verify the effect of two different VR stimuli on the pressure pain threshold and heart rate variability.METHODS: Healthy volunteers were randomized into two groups of virtual reality, nature and control.The pressure pain threshold was measured pre and post stimulus and heart rate variability measurements were collected pre, during and after virtual reality stimuli.The exploratory data analysis was performed.The t test was used to compare pressure pain threshold.For the differences in heart rate variability measurements, the linear mixed model was used.The level of significance adopted was 95%. RESULTS:The virtual reality nature group was composed of 19 participants with mean age of 22.7±4.72 years and the control virtual reality group was composed of 22 participants with mean age of 21.13±2.42years.The virtual reality nature group showed an increase in the pressure pain threshold after virtual reality and the mean difference was -0.41 [CI (95%)= -0.74 to -0.07; p=0.01].There was no difference in heart rate variability parameters measured during and after virtual reality stimulation. Comparison of the effect of two virtual reality stimuli on pressure pain sensitivity and autonomic responseComparação do efeito de dois estímulos de realidade virtual na sensibilidade de dor a pressão

This paper presents the design and development of virtual reality-based nature therapy application as an alternative tool for stress relaxation. Forest therapy, a type nature therapy, supports healing of individuals through immersing oneself in the forest environments. Based on this concept, a simulation of a virtual reality forest therapy application is developed. According to the forest therapy, users will experience the therapeutic and relaxation effect of the forests when they immersed themselves in the forest atmosphere. For users to be fully immersed in the virtual forest environment and have similar experience to the actual forest therapy, design considerations in terms of the image realism, navigation methods and aids were discussed and highlighted. Essential nature elements such as types of forests, vegetation and natural habitat were suggested. The overall application design was presented in using a game concept. Positive results from users in a preliminary study indicate the potential of virtual reality as a tool in the field of therapy.