Virtual Nature and Psychological Outcomes: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Evidence on the benefits of virtual nature for individuals is steadily increasing. In this contribution, report a systematic review summarizing studies that examined the implications of virtual nature on psychological and psychophysiological outcomes up to 2021. We used Scopus, Web of Science, and PsycINFO to identify the studies of interest. We found 160 records, of which 38 met the eligibility criteria. Results from quality assessment showed that most studies (thirty) were of medium or high quality and only eight were evaluated as low-quality studies. Studies addressed three main outcomes: mood, stress, and restorativeness. Other outcomes such as environmental preference, nature connectedness, cognitive performance received less attention, whilst others such as creativity, perceived safety, subjective vitality, and behavioral intentions were hardly investigated at all. Findings generally demonstrate a positive effect of virtual nature for its users, often comparable to outdoor nature exposure. Studies adopted experimental or quasi-experimental designs, used heterogeneous measures and often sample sizes of unknown power. Future research directions could consider uninvestigated outcomes using larger studies with adequate power and identified best practices.

Emotion regulation and virtual nature: cognitive reappraisal as an individual-level moderator for impacts on subjective vitality

“…Future efforts should be directed to replicate these results in other populations and more balanced samples by gender to allow the generalizability of the findings. Second, as recently highlighted 6 , short-term outcomes of VR are promising but future research should also address whether the changes observed hold in the long term, to enlarge the potential implications for interventions. In this regard, it could be important to examine not just the role of cognitive reappraisal in boosting post-exposure subjective vitality but also in sustaining it over time (e.g., after hours, days, weeks).…”

“…Despite these limitations, compared to previous studies on virtual nature 6 , our study has some important strengths such as a relatively large sample size, a methodological approach that controlled for different possible confounding variables found in the literature, the comparison between different natural environments that includes an under-investigated environment such as the arctic environment, and a focus on the moderators behind virtual nature benefits. To our knowledge, this is the first study to integrate all these features in one study.…”

“…An increasing number of studies have shown that exposure to nature throughVR can provide health benefits, especially in those cases when outdoor exposure is difficult or not possible 6,11,51 . This study is the first to have investigated the moderating role of habitual use of cognitive reappraisal in relation to these effects.…”

“…Another under-investigated aspect to consider is the potential moderating role of individual characteristics (e.g., personality traits or disposition) on the relationship between different types of VR natural environments and subjective vitality 6 . One relevant characteristic may be individual-level differences in emotion regulation 1,[24][25][26] .…”

“…Moreover, we included some control variables to assess if participants were similar among conditions. In particular, we measured: (1) sociodemographic variables (age, gender, educational qualification, marital status, and employment status), (2) personal conditions and individual differences that can interfere with virtual nature appreciation and subjective vitality levels (environmental identity and perceived stress in the previous month) 34,35 , (3) type of environment the participant lives in that may influence their perceptions or preference of nature, and hence the effects 36 , and (4) variables that may impact the VR experience itself (previous VR experience, the brightness of the images shown, sense of presence, and motion sickness 4,6 ).…”