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. 2022 Sep 29:13:1003268.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1003268. eCollection 2022.

The effects of indoor plants and traffic noise on English reading comprehension of Chinese university students in home offices

Yuanyuan Zhang  1 , Dayi Ou  1   2   3 , Qiu Chen  4 , Shengxian Kang  5 , Guanhua Qu  6
Affiliations

The effects of indoor plants and traffic noise on English reading comprehension of Chinese university students in home offices

Yuanyuan Zhang et al. Front Psychol. .

Abstract

Owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, working from home promotes the importance of indoor environment qualities. With the settings and functions of home offices, an experiment was carried out to determine the interaction effects between indoor plants and traffic noise levels (TNLs) on the performance and environmental evaluations of English reading comprehension tasks (ERCTs) and the performance of short-term breaks. A sample of 22 Chinese university students (12 males and 10 females) took part in the experiment. Two visual conditions (with and without plants) and five TNLs (i.e., 35, 45, 50, 55, and 60 dBA TNL) were included. Participants' accuracy rates, eye movements, mental workload, and feelings about the environment were collected. The mental fatigue recovery (MFR), visual fatigue recovery (VFR), anxiety recovery (AR), and unfriendly recovery (UR) were measured for the analysis of a 5-min short-term break. The results demonstrate (1) plants have significant effects on ERCTs and short-term breaks, especially at 45 and 50 dBA TNL; (2) the effects of TNLs on ERCTs' eye movements and work environment satisfaction differ by the presence of plants, e.g., the average pupil diameter (APD), lighting and layout satisfaction; (3) The effects of indoor plants on ERCT differ by the range of TNLs. In conclusion, indoor plants are beneficial to home workers engaged in ERCT when TNL does not exceed 50 dBA. The current data highlight the importance of audio-visual interaction in home offices and provide insights into the interaction mechanism between indoor plants and traffic noise.

Keywords: COVID-19; English reading comprehension; audio-visual interaction; home offices; indoor plants; traffic noise.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The layout of the residential unit. The area marked by a dashed line is the home office. R, C, and N1-N2 represent the locations of the test workstation, control console, and traffic noise generators, respectively. Indicates the positions of plants.
Figure 2
Figure 2
(A,C) The home office with plants. (B,D) The home office without plants.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Experimental procedures for each condition.
Figure 4
Figure 4
The process of data obtaining and calculation.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Mean accuracy rate (A), APD (B), TAS (C), and workload (D) at different TNLs (error bars define 95% CI) in the presence and absence of plants. * represents a significant effect of plants in conditions at the same TNL.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Mean sound disturbance (A) and acoustic satisfaction (B) at different TNLs (error bars define 95% CI) in the presence and absence of plants.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Mean layout (A), thermal (B), lighting (C), and air quality environmental satisfaction (D) at different TNLs (error bars define 95% CI) in the presence and absence of plants.
Figure 8
Figure 8
Mean MFR (A), VFR (B), AR (C), and UR (D) at different TNLs (error bars define 95% CI) in the presence and absence of plants. * represents a significant effect of plants in conditions at the same TNL.
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