Ha Jaeyoung, Kim Hyung Jin, Alam M M Lekhon
Landscape Architecture Program, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA.
Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional & Community Planning, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS 66506, USA.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2025 Aug 13;22(8):1267. doi: 10.3390/ijerph22081267.
Due to rapid urbanization over the past five decades, there has been growing interest in the role of biodiversity in supporting human well-being. While previous research highlights the role of landscape biodiversity in psychological restoration, the pathway linking visual and auditory cues to perceived biodiversity-and subsequently to restorative outcomes-remains poorly understood. This study explores how visual and auditory stimuli influence human perception, including perceived biodiversity, preference, and restorative effects, within environments that maintain a consistent level of ecological biodiversity. This study constructed 16 hypothetical environments by combining three visual factors (species evenness, vegetation height, and plant color) with one auditory factor (presence or absence of natural sound), holding actual biodiversity constant. By comparing results from ANOVA and mixed-effect modeling, our analysis revealed important contrasts between the direct and indirect effects of visual and auditory features on perceived biodiversity and restoration. Plant height and natural sound consistently demonstrated direct positive effects on restorative outcomes. In contrast, plant color and species evenness influenced restoration indirectly, mediated through perceived biodiversity. The mixed-effect model indicated a partial mediation pathway between landscape features and restorative effects-an effect not observed in the ANOVA analysis. Surprisingly, species evenness was not directly associated with restorative outcomes, but was indirectly linked via perceived biodiversity. Similarly, while color enhanced biodiversity perception, it did not directly improve mental restoration and, under some conditions, may even contribute to overstimulation. These findings suggest that the restorative benefits of nature arise not only from the ecological composition of landscapes but also from how biodiversity is perceived. Designers and planners should consider not only biodiversity itself, but also how it is presented and perceived through multisensory experiences.
在过去五十年中，由于快速的城市化进程，人们对生物多样性在支持人类福祉方面的作用越来越感兴趣。虽然先前的研究强调了景观生物多样性在心理恢复中的作用，但视觉和听觉线索与感知到的生物多样性以及随后的恢复效果之间的联系仍知之甚少。本研究探讨了在保持生态生物多样性水平一致的环境中，视觉和听觉刺激如何影响人类感知，包括感知到的生物多样性、偏好和恢复效果。本研究通过将三个视觉因素（物种均匀度、植被高度和植物颜色）与一个听觉因素（自然声音的有无）相结合，构建了16个假设环境，同时保持实际生物多样性不变。通过比较方差分析和混合效应模型的结果，我们的分析揭示了视觉和听觉特征对感知生物多样性和恢复的直接和间接影响之间的重要差异。植物高度和自然声音始终对恢复效果产生直接的积极影响。相比之下，植物颜色和物种均匀度通过感知到的生物多样性间接影响恢复。混合效应模型表明了景观特征与恢复效果之间的部分中介途径——这是方差分析中未观察到的一种效应。令人惊讶的是，物种均匀度与恢复效果没有直接关联，而是通过感知到的生物多样性间接联系。同样，虽然颜色增强了对生物多样性的感知，但它并没有直接改善心理恢复，在某些情况下，甚至可能导致过度刺激。这些发现表明，自然的恢复益处不仅源于景观的生态组成，还源于生物多样性的感知方式。设计师和规划者不仅应考虑生物多样性本身，还应考虑其通过多感官体验呈现和被感知的方式。
