Browsing by Subject "Restoration"

This study is aimed at discovering if Virtual reality (VR) has restorative effects on people and how it compares to real environment as a restorative environment. Theory frame used in this research is Attention restoration theory which is widely used in previous restorativeness studies. As the world is urbanizing rapidly, people spend less time in the nature than ever before. Previous researches have shown that nature has a restorative effect on people and it recovers aimed attention. This research tries to find a solution by using the VR environment as a substitute for real environments as a restorative place. Our hypothesis was; VR does have restorative effect and VR forest is perceived as restorative as physical forest. This VR experience study was executed as a quantitative study that was executed randomly picking students and staff of nearby corporations of university campus. Test subjects were exposed to the VR environment for a five-minute period. Information was gathered via questionnaires that were answered both before and after the VR experience. Both questionnaires measured the mood, vitality and restoration at the moment when answered. The data consisted of N=100. Addition to our own data, we had the data from similar research by Hauru et al (2012). With that it was possible to compare the VR environment to real environments. The results showed that the perceived restorativeness of VR was similar as the real forest environment, but the restorativeness was felt even stronger in the VR environment. People felt significantly better after the experience. From the research point-of-view VR could be used as a restoration in urban areas and for example during workdays/school days. It clearly showed its potential for future use. There is still a little concern about the results, as the participants visited the VR environment only once, the long-term effects are yet unknown. Due to that there is still need for future research regarding the long-term use of VR as a restorative environment.