Restorative Effects of Visual and Pictorial Spaces After Stress Induction in Virtual Reality

Siavash Eftekharifar, Anne Thaler, Nikolaus F. Troje

Abstract: Exposure to nature has been shown to have a positive effect on people’s mental health. Little research has compared restorative effects of simulated nature presented by different media. Here, we investigated stress recovery when viewing a computer-generated nature setting presented in visual and pictorial space in virtual reality. Participants experienced a stress induction task and were then put into one of two relaxation scenarios: they either viewed the nature scene in visual space, (they were immersed into it; presence condition), or they viewed a large depiction of it in pictorial space (picture condition). Participants’ affective state was assessed before and after stress induction, and after relaxation using the ZIPERS questionnaire. We additionally recorded electrodermal activity as a measure of physiological arousal. The results revealed that relaxation led to an increase in positive affect scores and a decrease in electrodermal activity only in the presence condition. The negative affect scores decreased significantly for both conditions similarly. Our results show that restoration is more effective in visual than in pictorial space.