Viewing Landscapes Is More Stimulating Than Scrambled Images After a Stressor: A Cross-disciplinary Approach

Abstract

Research has demonstrated that nature is beneficial for many aspects of one's health. This pilot study aimed to investigate whether viewing landscape artworks, as a form of representational nature, could improve psychological and physiological recovery from a laboratory stressor. A sample of 30 participants was randomized to one of two conditions: landscape and scrambled. After a laboratory stress task, participants in the landscape condition viewed a series of landscape paintings for 30 min; participants in the scrambled condition viewed digitally scrambled versions of these artworks as a control condition. Pupil size was measured while viewing the images using an eye tracker. Affect, drowsiness and fatigue, and the salivary stress biomarkers, cortisol, and alpha-amylase were measured at baseline, after the stressor, and after the artwork viewing period. After the viewing period, the scrambled condition had increased reports of low negative affect (which contains the variables of sleepy, dull, and sluggish) (p = 0.045, h p 2 = 0.12) and increased reports of drowsiness (p = 0.038, h p 2 = 0.12). Salivary cortisol levels decreased more rapidly while viewing the scrambled images compared to the landscape artworks (p = 0.027, h p 2 = 0.62). Lastly, pupil size while viewing the landscape artworks was larger than when viewing a blank screen (p = 0.025, h p 2 = 0.33), an effect not seen in the scrambled condition. This pilot study suggests that viewing landscape artworks was more stimulating and reduced drowsiness after stress when compared to viewing scrambled images.

Seeing nature from low to high levels: Mechanisms underlying the restorative effects of viewing nature images

“…Our results are generally supported by a recent study, which revealed beneficial effects by viewing landscape art, but not for their respective phase-scrambled versions (Law et al, 2020). This study did, however, not include a control environment (i.e., paintings of urban scenes), so that one cannot disentangle whether their observed effects come from the possibility to recognize any objects, from recognizing the image as art, and/or from recognizing the scene as nature.…”

“…Despite the discussed inconsistencies to previous findings and the possibility of false negative findings, we believe that the current null results suggest that the lack of spatial information and/or certain other image characteristics (e.g., edge properties) diminishes pronounced perceived restoration effects, and that the amplitude spectrum and colour properties seem to play no or rather minor roles for restoration. A similar finding using landscape paintings and their phase-scrambled counterparts was published recently (Law et al, 2020) Overall the results indicate that the spatial information available in original images and line drawings, which allowed higher-order processing (i.e., recognizing objects and the environment), seems to evoke perceived restoration and higher liking ratings for nature compared to urban environments. However, so far one cannot conclude whether these effects were solely due to the recognition of the environment and the respective associations or were also influenced by differing edge-related image properties since line drawings of nature and urban environments still vary systematically in some properties (S3 in the Supplemental Material).…”

“…In phase-scrambled images, many properties remain similar to original images (e.g., spectral slope and therefore statistical regularity, contrast, colour, and orientation characteristics), while the spatial information, and therefore object recognition, is impeded. In previous studies, phase-scrambled nature images compared to urban ones were found to be preferred explicitly and implicitly, although they seem to not affect restoration or cognitive load (Authors, 2021;Valtchanov & Ellard, 2015; see also Law et al, 2020, for related findings on landscape paintings and their phase-scrambled versions).…”

Evidence for the effects of viewing visual artworks on stress outcomes: a scoping review

“…Law et al 25 Conducted a pilot study to investigate whether nature artworks could improve recovery from a laboratory stressor. Participants were randomised to either view a 30 min digital slideshow of landscape artworks or digitally scrambled versions of these artworks after being exposed to a laboratory stressor.…”

“…23 Nature content may also affect biological indicators of stress responses; cortisol levels decreased faster after a stressor in people viewing scrambled versions of nature artworks, compared with the original nature artworks. 25 The remaining two studies 9 20 did not report on the content of the artwork, and therefore, cannot be categorised.…”