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. 2023 May 17;13(1):8053.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-34718-3.

Adding virtual plants leads to higher cognitive performance and psychological well-being in virtual reality

Fariba Mostajeran  1 , Frank Steinicke  2 , Sarah Reinhart  2 , Wolfgang Stuerzlinger  3 , Bernhard E Riecke  4 , Simone Kühn  5   6   7
Affiliations

Adding virtual plants leads to higher cognitive performance and psychological well-being in virtual reality

Fariba Mostajeran et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

Previous research has shown the positive effects of exposure to real and virtual nature. To investigate how such benefits might generalize to ever-more-prevalent virtual workplaces, we examined the effects of the absence or presence of virtual plants in an office environment in Virtual Reality (VR) on users' cognitive performance and psychological well-being. The results of our user study with 39 participants show that in the presence of virtual plants, participants performed significantly better in both short-term memory and creativity tasks. Furthermore, they reported higher psychological well-being scores, including positive affect and attentive coping, whilst reporting lower feelings of anger and aggression after exposure to virtual plants in VR. The virtual office with plants was also perceived as more restorative and induced a higher sense of presence. Overall, these results highlight how the presence of virtual plants in VR can have positive influences on users, and therefore, constitute important design considerations when developing future working and learning spaces.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Example illustrations of the virtual office (a, c) without and (b, d) with virtual biophilic design in forms of virtual plants from the participant’s perspective in the experiment (a, b) and from a top view (c, d).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Digit span backward (DSB).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Alternative uses task (AUT).
Figure 4
Figure 4
Zuckerman inventory of personal reactions (ZIPERS).
Figure 5
Figure 5
Positive and negative affect schedule (PANAS).
Figure 6
Figure 6
Perceived restorativeness scale (PRS) total score.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Sense of presence.
Figure 8
Figure 8
Simulator sickness.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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