A Nature Photo Soothes Like a Blank Wall

spanSheldon Lewis
We all know that gazing at a natural setting — such as a waterfall, forest, or mountain scene — can uplift us and relieve our stress, so it would stand to reason that seeing the televised image of such a scene would have the same effect. Not so, say researchers at the University of Washington.

In the study, published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology, 90 UW undergrads — 30 in each of three groups — spent an hour in a room, peering through a window that
overlooked an on-campus fountain, looking at a plasma real-time display of the fountain,

or staring at a blank wall. The students were given a low-level stress task to raise their heart rates, and then the researchers measured how fast the students’ heart rates returned to normal — a sign of how much their stress was reduced. Those participants who looked out the window at the fountain had a faster recovery rate than those who looked at the blank wall. And the longer they looked through the window, the faster their heart rate declined. But, strikingly, watching the plasma display was no more effective in lowering heart rates than staring at the blank wall.

Environmental psychologist Peter H. Kahn, Jr., notes that “not only are we quickly degrading the natural world, and thus limiting our opportunities to interact with healthy ecosystems, but more and more the human experience of nature will be mediated by technological systems.” He cautions that these pseudo-natural settings are not just
different from real ones but are “impoverished” imitations.