Discrimination of Urban Spaces with Different Level of Restorativeness Based on the Original and on a Shorter Version of Hartig et al.’s Perceived Restorativeness Scale

Abstract

Restorativeness is defined as the potential of the environment to re-establish certain cognitive capacities related to human information processing. The most frequently used instrument for evaluating the restorativeness of places is the Perceived Restorativeness Scale, proposed by Hartig et al. (1991). Later on, shorter versions of the Perceived Restorativeness Scale were proposed. The aim of this work is to evaluate the discriminatory capacity of the original and of a shorter Spanish version of the PRS, considering urban settings previously selected for having different level of restorativeness, according to expert’s criteria. The study involved 244 students and used a 3 × 2 mixed experimental design, with two independent variables: Restorativeness of a place (between-subjects), which was manipulated by showing pictures of settings selected with varying levels of restorativeness (high, medium, low), and length of the scale (within-subjects), which was manipulated by asking subjects to fill in both the original and a shorter version of the PRS. The order of presentation of the two scales was counterbalanced. Results show an appropriate reliability for both version of the scale. Items of being-away, fascination, and coherence of the shorter scale correlate more strongly with the corresponding factor of the original scale, compared to the others factors. Both scales produce similar values for the perceived restorativeness of the different places, except for places with low restorativeness.

The Effects of Green and Urban Walking in Different Time Frames on Physio-Psychological Responses of Middle-Aged and Older People in Chengdu, China

“…In addition, the results of restorativeness were not in accordance with the findings by Sonntag-Öström, et al [ 58 ], who reported that four types of green environments all scored much higher than a city environment. There was an assumption that urban environments were inherently lacking stress-reducing and mood-enhancing functions [ 18 ], and the restorative effects of urban areas were possibly associated with urban greening [ 45 ]. However, in the present study, only a few plants were observed in the urban area, and the restorativeness of the nighttime urban environment did not seem to be strongly associated with plants.…”

“…A shortened version of the Perceived Restorativeness Scale (PRS) was used to measure perceived restorativeness of environment based on the Attention Restoration Theory [ 42 , 43 , 44 ]. The reliability and validity of the short scale were tested previously [ 45 ]. The scale consists of five items with a 10-point Likert scale.…”

Influence of Perceived Environmental Quality on the Perceived Restorativeness of Public Spaces

“…The Restorative Capacity scale, translated into Spanish and used by Ruiz and Hernández (2014) and Negrín et al (2017) from the original scale proposed by Berto (2005), which, in turn, was developed as a reduced version of Korpela and Hartig's (1996) Perceived Restorativeness Scale (PRS), is composed of five items whose response scale is Likert type from one to five, with 1 being "Totally disagree" and 5 "Totally agree. " The internal consistency was 0.82.…”

The Effects of Artificial Lake Space on Satisfaction and Restorativeness of the Overall Environment and Soundscape in Urban Parks

“…Two prevailing theories of restorativeness in the natural environment are widely applied: attentional restoration theory (ART) (Kaplan and Kaplan, 1989;Kaplan, 1995) and stress recovery theory (SRT) (Ulrich et al, 1991). The perceived restorativeness scales (PRS) have been developed according to ART to evaluate people's recovery levels in different environments (Hartig et al, 1997;Fátima et al, 2017), which contains four main components with 16 items in total: Fascination (the attraction of involuntary, effortless attention); Being-Away (a shift away from the present daily routine to a different environment); Compatibility (fit to an individual's planned behavior and environmental demands); and Extent (it can be experienced through immersion in intellectual activities and in physical environments.) (Hartig et al, 1996(Hartig et al, , 1997.…”