Scenes of nature trump technology in reducing low-level stress

Technology can send a man to the moon, help unlock the secrets of DNA and let people around the world easily communicate through the Internet. But can it substitute for nature?

Apparently not, according to a new study that measured individuals' heart recovery rate from minor stress when exposed to a natural scene through a window, the same scene shown on a high-definition plasma screen, or a blank wall. The heart rate of people who looked at the scene through the window dropped more quickly than the others. In fact, the high-definition plasma screen had no more effect than the blank wall.

In addition, the research done through the Human Interaction with Nature and Technological Systems Lab at the University of Washington showed that when people spent more time looking at the natural scene their heart rates tended to decrease more. That was not the case with the plasma screen.

The study, funded by the National Science Foundation, is published in the current issue of the Journal of Environmental Psychology.

"Technology is good and it can help our lives, but let's not be fooled into thinking we can live without nature," said Peter Kahn, a UW associate professor of psychology who led the research team.

"We are losing direct experiences with nature. Instead, more and more we're experiencing nature represented technologically through television and other media. Children grow up watching Discovery Channel and Animal Planet. That's probably better than nothing. But as a species we need interaction with actual nature for our physical and psychological well-being."

Part of this loss comes from what the researchers call environmental generational amnesia. This is the idea that across generations the amount of environmental degradation increases, but each generation views conditions it grew up with as largely non-degraded and normal. Children growing up today in the cities with the worst air pollution often, for example, don't believe that their communities are particularly polluted.

"This problem of environmental generational amnesia is particularly important for children coming of age with current technologies," said Rachel Severson, a co-author of the study and a UW psychology doctoral student. "Children may not realize they are not getting the benefits of actual nature when interacting with what we're calling technological nature."

To see how people reacted to nature and a technological representation of it, the researchers recruited 90 college students to participate in an experiment that had them work on four mental tasks while sitting at a desk in an office. With 30 of the students, the desk faced a window overlooking a campus scene that included a large fountain and trees. For a second group of 30 students, the window was replaced with the plasma screen that showed the same nature scene in real time. For the remaining 30 students, curtains covered the plasma screen and the desk faced a blank wall.

Participants were tested individually. Each was welcomed by a researcher, hooked up to a heart rate monitor and told to wait for five minutes while the researcher stepped out of sight. A camera mounted on the wall near the window or plasma screen was synchronized with the heart monitor and tracked participants' eye movements. At the end of the waiting period, the researcher returned, explained the first task and stepped out of sight. This was repeated for the remaining three tasks and then the subject was told to wait again for five minutes.

Heart recovery rate was based on how quickly each participant's heart rate dropped in the 60 seconds after being told to wait or to have one of the tasks explained. Each person's performance was tallied on the basis of six measurements, once after every task and the two waiting periods. Low-level stress was created by having to deal with another person in a social situation and the anticipation or performance anxiety each might have experienced to do well on the four tasks.

The researchers found that participants with the plasma screen actually looked at it just as often as did those who had the window. However, the window held the students' attention significantly longer than the plasma screen did. When participants spent more time looking at the window, their heart rates decreased faster than on tasks when they spent less time looking at the window. This was not true with the plasma screen.

"I was surprised by this," said Kahn. "I thought the plasma screen would come somewhere between the glass window and the blank wall. This study is important because it shows the importance of nature in human lives and at least one limitation of technological nature.

"In the years ahead, technological nature will get more sophisticated and compelling. But if it continues to replace our interaction with actual nature, it will come at a cost. To thrive as a species, we still need to interact with nature by encountering an animal in the wild, walking along the ocean's edge or sleeping under the enormity of the night sky."

Source: University of Washington

Related stories:

HIV conquers immune system faster than previously realized
New research into the earliest events occurring immediately upon infection with HIV-I shows that the virus deals a stunning blow to the immune system earlier than was previously understood. According to scientists at Duke University Medical Center, this suggests the window of opportunity for successful intervention may be only a matter of days – not weeks – after transmission, as researchers had previously believed.
Cluster Spacecraft Catch Crashing Waves in Earth's Magnetic Bubble
A bevy of satellites buzzing around in the Earth's magnetosphere has found at least part of the answer to a long-standing puzzle about the source of the charged particles that feed the aurora.

The charged particles come from explosions on the sun and smash into the Earth's magnetic field, which repels the bulk of them. But many slip through, often via a physical process called magnetic reconnection, where the magnetic field traveling with the particles breaks and reconnects with the Earth's field, opening a window for the particles to surge through. Once inside, these excited particles can spiral down toward the poles and create brilliant auroras when they hit the atmosphere.
Using a fan during sleep lowers SIDS risk by 72 percent
Infants who slept in a bedroom with a fan ventilating the air had a 72 percent lower risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome compared to infants who slept in a bedroom without a fan, according to a new study by the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research. The study appears in the October issue of the Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine.
NASA Spacecraft Finds the Sun is Not a Perfect Sphere
(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists using NASA’s RHESSI spacecraft have measured the roundness of the sun with unprecedented precision. They find that it is not a perfect sphere. During years of high solar activity the sun develops a thin “cantaloupe skin” that significantly increases its apparent oblateness: the sun’s equatorial radius becomes slightly larger than its polar radius. Their results appear the Oct. 2nd edition of Science Express.
Short RNAs show a long history
MicroRNAs, the tiny molecules that fine-tune gene expression, were first discovered in 1993. But it turns out they've been around for a billion years.
Spacing, not size, matters in visual recognition, researchers find
You might think that the farthest distance at which you can hold a book and still read it quickly is determined by the size of the letters. However, New York University neuroscientists have concluded that it's the spacing between letters, not their size, that matters. In general, objects, such as letters, can be recognized only if they are separated by enough space, the "critical spacing." Objects closer than that spacing are "crowded" and cannot be identified. A broad review of this crowding phenomenon, appearing in the latest issue of the journal Nature Neuroscience, shows that this critical spacing is the same for all objects, including letters, animals, and furniture.
Using G OS 3.0 to access Google programs
Before recent fuss over the new Google Chrome browser, I was looking at another new freebie that may give the average user a better idea of where the search giant is headed. And it isn't even a Google product.
Site used by sodium to control sensitivity of certain potassium ion channels
Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine researchers have uncovered how sodium is able to control specific potassium ion channels in cells, according to new study findings published online this week in Nature Chemical Biology.

News discussion:

Medicine & Health news