Forest Science and Technology
ISSN: 2158-0103 (Print) 2158-0715 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tfst20
The influence of indirect nature experience on
human system
Jin Young Jeon, Poung Sik Yeon & Won Sop Shin
To cite this article: Jin Young Jeon, Poung Sik Yeon & Won Sop Shin (2018) The influence of
indirect nature experience on human system, Forest Science and Technology, 14:1, 29-32, DOI:
10.1080/21580103.2017.1420701
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/21580103.2017.1420701
© 2018 The Author(s). Published by Informa
UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis
Group.
Published online: 09 Jan 2018.
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FOREST SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, 2018
E–ISSN 2158-0715, VOL. 14, NO. 1, 29–32
https://doi.org/10.1080/21580103.2017.1420701
The influence of indirect nature experience on human system
Jin Young Jeona, Poung Sik Yeonb and Won Sop Shina
aGraduate Department of Forest Therapy, Chungbuk National University, 1 Chungdae-ro, Cheongju 28644, Korea; bNational Center for Forest
Therapy, 209 Therapy-ro, Bonghyun-myeon, Yeongju, Kyungbuk 36043, Korea
ABSTRACT
A growing number of studies have shown that contact with nature contributes enhancing positive
psycho-physiological effects. This study experimentally compared the effects of direct and indirect
contact with nature on psychological and physiological affect, respectively. Thirty university students
participated in this experiment. The results of this study indicated that indirect nature experience also
provided positive psychological and physiological effects, except for parasympathetic nerve activity.
The results of the present study would support the effectiveness of virtual nature for people who
cannot easily access real nature in order to improve psychological benefits.
ARTICLE HISTORY
Received 20 November 2017
Accepted 20 December 2017
KEYWORDS
Contact with nature; psycho-
physiological effects; virtual
nature; forest therapy; health
benefits
1. Introduction
According to biophilia (Wilson 1984) and human evolution-
ary (Ulrich 1981) theories, humans have spent many
thousands of years adapting to the natural environment, yet
have only inhabited urban ones for relatively few generations
(Maller et al. 2006). However, the world has become an urban
society, with a vast number of people becoming alienated
from the traditional people–nature relationship. The modern
urban continuous, distracting stimuli can impede people’s
abilities to focus on significant issues or to achieve relaxed
states (Kaplan 2001; Kim et al. 2017). Viewing nature is con-
sidered one approach to promoting balance and harmony in
the modern urbanite’s life.
Ulrich et al. (1991) argued that a person’s initial response
to an environment is affective. They believed that the initial
affective response to an environment shapes the cognitive
events that follow, leading to sustained attention, higher lev-
els of positive feelings, and reduced negative or stress-related
feelings (Valtchanov et al. 2010). The growing number of
studies supported Ulrich and his colleagues’ argument
and evidenced that viewing natural scenes contributes to
reducing stress, provides more positive psycho-physiological
effects on human systems, and may facilitate recovery from
illness (Shin et al. 2012; Bang et al. 2017; Lee 2017). Cross-
cultural studies also indicate that visual exposure to natural
scenes improves moods, reduces stress, and provides opti-
mal physiological activation (Han 2010; Shin et al. 2011;
Honold et al. 2014; Song et al. 2015; Bang et al. 2017; Lee
2017).
The accumulating evidence of the beneficial effects of
viewing nature prompts an important question: can restor-
ative environments be created and customized to promote a
health benefit and help people who have difficulties visiting
or spending time in real nature? In the modern society, not
everyone can access nature easily. In particular, people with
disabilities, senior citizens, and those with other illnesses can-
not freely seek out natural settings. For these populations,
replicating the restorative effects of nature may be achievable
using indirect nature experiences.
This study experimentally compared the effects of direct
and indirect contact with nature (i.e., virtual nature experi-
ence) on psychological and physiological affect, respectively.
To our knowledge, this comparison of direct and indirect
nature experience and their differential impacts on psycho-
physiological affect, respectively, has not been investigated
experimentally.
2. Material and methods
2.1. Participants
Thirty university students aged between 18 and 27 (21.2 §1.7)
years, participated in this experiment. Anyone with
a current or recent history of endocrine, neuropsychiatric,
salivary gland or acute/chronic pain disorders, or who was
using certain disqualifying medicines, was excluded from
participating. Before the experiment, the participants were
fully informed about the aims and procedures involved.
After briefing about the experiment, the participants signed
an agreement to take part in the study. The study was
approved by the Institutional Review Board of the Chung-
buk National University (CBNU 201609-BMSB-366-01)
and conducted in accordance with committee’s regulations.
Participants came to the laboratory one at a time by sched-
uled appointments over the course of 8 weeks.
2.2. Experimental design
To compare the effects of direct and indirect nature experi-
ence on psychological and physiological influence, two sets of
experiments were conducted. A nature setting located near
the Chungbuk National University campus in Cheongju,
South Korea was selected for the effect of direct nature expe-
rience. The nature area was flat, bright and well-managed
with mostly pine trees (Figure 1). Physiological and psycho-
logical effects of indirect nature experiences were measured
in a laboratory with an artificial climate maintained at 25C
with 50% relative humidity (Figure 2).
CONTACT Won Sop Shin shinwon@chungbuk.ac.kr
© 2018 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, dis-
tribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
30
J. Y. JEON ET AL.
E-ISSN 2158-0715
Figure 3. Mood improvement after direct nature experience.
2.5. Profile of mood state (POMS)
Figure 1. Study area for investigating the effect of direct forest experience.
2.3. Heart rate variability
Heart rate variability (HRV) was measured as the periods
between consecutive R waves (R–R intervals) in an electro-
cardiogram recorded with a portable electrocardiograph
(Canopy 9 plus, IEMBIO). The low frequency (LF; 0.04–
0.15 Hz) band and the high frequency (HF; 0.15–0.40 Hz)
band were measured. The HF power was suggested as reflect
parasympathetic nervous activity (Kobayashi et al. 2012).
2.4. Semantic differential method
The participant’s emotional impact was investigated using a
modified semantic differential (SD) method (Osgood et al.
1957). This SD method contains items and each item has a
pair of adjectives, such as “comfortable–uncomfortable.”
The POMS is a commonly employed, factor-based and ana-
lytically derived scale to measure psychological distress. In
this study, the Korean version of POMS was employed to
measure each participant’s six mood states, such as tension
and anxiety (TA), depression (D), anger and hostility (A-H),
vigor (V), fatigue (F), and confusion (C).
3. Results
3.1. Direct and indirect nature experience and mood
state
To investigate the effect of mood states from direct and indi-
rect nature experiences, participants’ mood states were mea-
sured before and after exposure to nature experiences. As can
be seen from Figures 3 and 4, there were significant differen-
ces in t-scores in both direct and indirect nature experience
groups. Specifically, in the direct nature experience group,
participants’ tension and anxiety (TA) (t = 4.65; p = .000),
depression (D) (t = 2.86; p = .008), fatigue (F) (t = 3.70;
p = .001), and confusion (C) (t = 4.64; p = .000) were signifi-
cantly improved at p 0.01 level after exposure to nature.
On the other hand, anger (A) (t = 2.10; p = .044) and vigor
(V) (t = 2.18; p = .038) were improved at p 0.05 level after
exposure to nature. Interestingly, in the indirect nature expe-
rience group, all moods significantly improved at p 0.01
level after exposure to virtual nature [tension and anxiety
Figure 2. Laboratory for investigating the effect of indirect forest experience. Figure 4. Mood improvement after indirect nature experience.
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FOREST SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
31
4. Discussion
Figure 5. Differences in SD scores between direct and indirect nature
experiences.
(TA) (t = 4.17; p = .000), depression (D) (t = 3.81; p = .001),
anger and hostility (A) (t = 3.74; p = .001), vigor (V)
(t = 2.85; p = .008), fatigue (F) (t = 4.12; p = .000), and confu-
sion (C) (t = 3.16; p = .004)]. The results indicate that those
who had nature experiences either directly or indirectly
obtained positive mood states.
3.2. Semantic differential (SD) method
Figure 5 compares the effects of emotional impact between
direct and indirect nature experiences. Among the three
emotional impact categories, there were significant differen-
ces in “pleasant” (t = 2.39; p = .020) and “natural” (t = 2.60;
p = .012). However, in the “calm” category, no significant dif-
ference was found (t = –.111; p = .912). The results of the SD
comparison indicate that participants who had a direct
nature experience felt higher pleasant and natural feelings
than those who had an indirect nature experience.
3.3. Parasympathetic nerve activity
The results of analysis to compare the natural logarithm of
HF component, which is known as an estimate of parasym-
pathetic nerve activity, between direct and indirect nature
experiences are shown in Figures 6. As can be seen from
Figure 6, there were significant differences in mean HF values
between before and after in the direct nature experience
group (t = 3.57; p = .001). However, in the indirect nature
experience group, no significant difference was found
between before and after experiences (t = 0.97; p = .336).
Contact with nature has been evidenced to enhance psy-
cho-physiological effect positively (Shin et al. 2012; Beil
and Hanes 2013; Bang et al. 2017; Lee 2017). The present
study was performed to compare the psycho-physiological
effects of direct and indirect nature experience. Although
some previous studies (Ulrich 1984; Valtchanov et al.
2010; McAllister et al. 2017) have reported positive
impacts of indirect nature experiences, very few studies
have reported the impacts of comparison between direct
and indirect nature experiences.
The results of this study indicate that indirect nature expe-
rience provided positive psychological and physiological
effects as direct nature experience did, except parasympa-
thetic nerve activity. The findings in this study are consistent
with the Kaplan and Kaplan (1989) Attention Restoration
Theory (ART) that nature provides human restoration. The
findings also are in line with Ulrich’s argument that contact
with nature provides positive physiological responses.
The present study results indicated that exposure to
virtual nature can produce significant improvement in affec-
tive states. Modern technology in virtual reality (VR) would
allow for the complete customization and creation of restor-
ative environments (Valtchanov et al. 2010). The results of
the present study would support the effectiveness of virtual
nature for people who cannot easily access real nature. People
with disabilities, patients, inmates, and workers in remote
areas are in urgent need of experiencing nature to obtain pos-
itive psycho-physiological benefits. The present study can
provide strong justification for providing virtual nature.
The findings of the present study indicate that even
brief, virtual nature experience can enhance affect, and
emphasizes the necessity of indirect nature experience for
special populations who cannot easily access real nature.
The experimental constructs employed in this study may
have some limitations that can be addressed by future
research. Relatively small sample size and a homogeneous
group in this study may limit its statistical power. Further
research should consider including more participants from
diverse populations. Especially, studies with large numbers
of participants from different population groups may gen-
eralize the results of this study. Although the physiological
measure did not show a significant difference in HRV
response between before and after exposure to indirect
nature, the measures on psychological effects suggest that
a large variety of content needs to be made available in
order to achieve compatibility with a large number of peo-
ple. Duration of exposure to indirect nature and content
of nature may cause the insignificant difference in HRV.
Further research with different content of nature, different
duration to exposure and different population may be
needed to confirm the findings of this study.
Figure 6. HF changes after nature experiences.
5. Conclusion
This study investigated the psycho-physiological effects of
direct and indirect nature experiences. The results of this
study showed that exposure to real and virtual natural envi-
ronment appears to be beneficial to participants’ moods and
feelings. However, exposure to the real natural environment
tends to be more beneficial in physiological response (para-
sympathetic nerve activity) than exposure to virtual nature.
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J. Y. JEON ET AL.
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Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
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