Stress reduction from landscape painting and live nature viewing: a comparative experimental study

Societal trends indicate a decreasing frequency of visits to natural settings and an increasing withdrawal from such environments. Separation from natural environments may lead individuals to miss out on the health benefits associated with direct exposure to nature, including stress reduction and positive mood enhancement. Given these trends, surrogate exposures to live nature exposure might comparably reduce stress and are worth exploring. This experimental study contrasts stress reduction from viewing landscape paintings vs. live nature in situ.

We used sensor-monitored skin conductance and survey instruments on 37 older adults who are regular museum visitors to measure individual stress recovery and improvements in mood indicators for each nature viewing treatment, outdoor park and indoor landscape paintings, conducted during a museum-based educational programme in May 2022 in the Northeastern USA.

Difference-in-difference analyses on survey data identified stress reduction of comparable statistical magnitude following both viewing types. However, significantly lower average levels of physiological arousal as measured by skin conductance were observed among park viewers (α = 0.126 for park viewing vs. α = 1.172 for gallery viewing). Regression analysis comparing slopes and rates of change in stress reduction during the calming events revealed a faster rate of stress reduction during the gallery viewing (β = -0.217 for the gallery vs. β = -0.066 for the park).

Findings from this research could be relevant for populations without live nature access or disinclined to go outdoors by offering alternatives to first-person nature contact that reduce stress and enhance positive affect as observed following nature viewing.