XR for Health & Wellbeing

The question

Does a virtual forest do what a real one does? Nature contact lowers stress and restores attention, and extended reality makes it deliverable to a hospital room, a dorm, or a clinic. But nature is not one thing, and neither is the benefit. We ask which properties of a restorative environment survive being simulated in virtual reality, for whom, and on which measure.

How we work

There are different ways we have tested our environments. For example, we have compared virtual environments against each other and against the real thing, pairing self-report with physiological measures. Motion and realism both carried weight. A “live” forest improved perceived restorativeness and positive affect, and a high-realism forest beat a low-realism one.

What this work enables

A restorative virtual reality forest can improve attention and reduce stress. We hope to continue to understand the different properties of perception that allow these effects to happen outside of a real, living forest.