Centre for Public Health and Wellbeing, University of the West of England, Bristol BS16 1QY, UK.
Erasmus Centre for Urban, Port and Transport Economics, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Burgemeester Oudlaan 50, 3062 PA Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Aug 2;19(15):9457. doi: 10.3390/ijerph19159457.
Improving the mental health of urban residents is a global public health priority. This study builds on existing work that demonstrates the ability of virtual exposure to restorative environments to improve population mental health. It compares the restorative effects of green, blue and historic environments delivered by both flat screen and immersive virtual reality technology, and triangulates data from psychological, physiological and qualitative sources. Results from the subjective measure analyses showed that exposures to all the experimental videos were associated with self-reported reduced anxiety and improved mood, although the historic environment was associated with a smaller reduction of anxiety (p < 0.01). These results were supported by the qualitative accounts. For two of the electroencephalography (EEG) frequency bands, higher levels of activity were observed for historic environments. In relation to the mode of delivery, the subjective measures did not suggest any effect, while for the EEG analyses there was evidence of a significant effect of technology across three out of four frequency bands. In conclusion, this study adds to the evidence that the benefits of restorative environments can be delivered through virtual exposure and suggests that virtual reality may provide greater levels of immersion than flat screen viewing.
提升城市居民的心理健康是全球公共卫生的重点。本研究基于现有的工作，证明了虚拟暴露于恢复性环境对改善人群心理健康的能力。它比较了通过平面屏幕和沉浸式虚拟现实技术提供的绿色、蓝色和历史环境的恢复效果，并从心理、生理和定性来源的数据进行三角测量。主观测量分析的结果表明，接触所有实验视频都与自我报告的焦虑减轻和情绪改善有关，尽管历史环境与焦虑减轻幅度较小（p<0.01）有关。这些结果得到了定性描述的支持。对于两种脑电图（EEG）频段，历史环境的活动水平较高。就传递模式而言，主观测量没有显示出任何效果，而对于 EEG 分析，有证据表明，在四个频段中的三个频段，技术具有显著的效果。总之，本研究为恢复性环境的益处可以通过虚拟暴露来实现这一观点提供了更多证据，并表明虚拟现实可能比平面屏幕观看提供更高水平的沉浸感。
