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Perceived sensory dimensions of green areas: An experimental study on stress recovery

journal contribution
posted on 2023-02-16, 04:46 authored by S Memari, M Pazhouhanfar, P Grahn
Natural environments have been shown to promote health, and are, therefore, important for achieving social sustainability in cities. As cities grow and become denser, it is important to develop knowledge about the characteristics of natural environments that work to promote health. Perceived Sensory Dimensions (PSDs) is a tool that defines eight different cultural ecosystem services. They correspond to different human needs (rest, exercise, socialising, pleasure, or security) resulting in rehabilitation and health and well-being promotion. An experiment was conducted to study the potential of PSDs to restore people who experienced stressful accidents. One hundred and fifty-seven participants were recruited and asked first to watch a film clip of serious accidents, then to look at the pictures, depicting one particular type of PSDs, while listening to its respective audio recording. Their stress levels were measured before exposure to the stressor (baseline), after exposure to the stressor (pre-test), and after exposure to a particular type of PSDs (post-test). The results show that all eight PSDs effectively provide mental recovery, but there are statistical differences in their potentials. As such, it is proposed that the combined potential of the PSDs is needed, and should be used to increase the capacity and supply of health-promoting urban green areas.

History

Journal

Sustainability (Switzerland)

Volume

13

Article number

ARTN 5419

ISSN

2071-1050

eISSN

2071-1050

Language

English

Publication classification

C1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal

Issue

10

Publisher

MDPI