Recovery in sensory-enriched break environments: integrating vision, sound and scent into simulated indoor and outdoor environments

Abstract

To deal with stress and exhaustion at work, personal resources need to be replenished during breaks. The aim of this laboratory study (n = 122 students) was to test the restorative potential of sensory-enriched break environments (SEBEs) in a between-subjects with repeated measures design, focusing on the type of the environment (natural outdoor vs. built indoor environment) and sensory input (no sensory input vs. audiovisual input vs. audiovisual and olfactory input). Analyses showed that SEBEs simulating either a natural or a lounge environment were perceived as more pleasant and restorative (fascination/being away) than a standard break room, which in turn facilitated the recovery of personal resources (mood, fatigue, arousal). Moreover, adding a congruent scent to an audiovisual simulation indirectly facilitated the recovery of personal resources via greater scent pleasantness and higher fascination and being away. The current study shows opportunities for sensory enrichment to foster restoration in break environments. Practitioner Summery: This project reveals the impact of the recovery process of simulated environments on personal resources. Analyses confirmed that sensory-enriched environments were perceived as more restorative than less enriched environments, which in turn facilitated the recovery of personal resources. The results highlight the relevance of holistic sensory impressions to fostering recovery.

Sound and Soundscape in Restorative Natural Environments: A Narrative Literature Review

“…Studies on these topics tend to focus on visuo-spatial experience of environments, utilizing stimuli such as photographs, videos, and slideshows, but environments are not experienced through vision alone. There is growing interest in and call for study of non-visual aspects of restorative environments, including sound, smell, and touch (Conniff and Craig, 2016;Iyendo, 2016;Franco et al, 2017;Aletta and Kang, 2019;Sona et al, 2019;Schebella et al, 2020). Such work is important to ensure that the research field remains relevant to individuals with visual impairment (Shaw et al, 2015;Bell, 2019a,b) and to maximize extended reality presentations of environments, e.g., through virtual or augmented reality (Depledge et al, 2011).…”

Light as a positive situational cue at work: Satisfaction with light relates to judgements of other's warmth and competence

“…Previous research indicates that environmental conditions, for instance, some kinds of music (May and Hamilton 1980), pleasant scents (Baron 1990;Sona, Dietl, and Steidle 2018), and pleasant room temperature (Bowman, Giuliani, and Minge 1981) may elicit positive affective states. Lighting is another important characteristic of indoor environments that may induce positive affect.…”

Application of Virtual Environments for Biophilic Design: A Critical Review

“…In addition, some physical stress inducting tasks, including cold pressor task and undergoing dental treatment as a stressor [131], are reported in the literature. Besides research that studied cognitive performance, some studies used cognitive tests only as a stressor to create mental fatigue in subjects in the pre-restoration part (e.g., [34,123,133]).…”

“…• Natural environment setting/context: wild natural scenes, such as forest environment, which may include diverse foliage, birds singing, and various smells, are considered as natural environment settings in many of the reviewed literature (68.4%). Urban green spaces, e.g., public parks in urban context, is also considered in some studies (l8.4%, e.g., [21,23,123,125]). In the design domain, natural environment settings are mostly biophilic indoor environments (18.4%, e.g., [31][32][33][34]) or biophilic outdoor environments (less than 5%, e.g., [51])…”

“…Sensory inputs: as expected, visual stimuli are the major sensory inputs in reviewed studies. In addition, auditory stimuli (55.2%), followed by olfactory cues (10.5%, e.g., [123,125,137,139]), tactile (less than 3%, [139]), thermal, and wind (less than 3%, [133]), are considered in researches. Generally, study on various sensory inputs especially draw attention in the psychology and informatics domain.…”