Articles
Nature experiences while walking in an urban park: joint approaches in psychology and landscape sciences
Article number
1356_50
Pages
401 – 416
Language
English
Abstract
Urban green spaces’ benefits on city dwellers’ mental health are now well established, in particular when it comes to stress, anxiety and mood.
These benefits can be influenced by landscape features as well as participants’ individual characteristics.
To further explore this knowledge, we test an interdisciplinary approach to identify which urban park characteristics generate well-being and induce a state of mindfulness.
Through an in situ experiment, we analyse the nature experience of 40 participants during a 20-min walk through two different landscapes in an urban park located in Angers, France.
An interdisciplinary approach relying on landscape sciences and psychology is implemented.
A landscape analysis offers an objective assessment of the two landscapes’ atmospheres.
The participants’ anxiety level, positive and negative effects, connectedness to nature and past nature experiences are assessed through psychometric scales.
Additionally, a phenomenological interview is conducted to access each participant’s subjective experience.
These verbal productions are submitted to thematic and lexical analysis to investigate to what extent cognitive and emotional representations are affected by specific landscape features.
Results show that landscape characteristics and participant’s well-being are indeed linked.
In particular, well-being is associated with specific landscape features and the presence of plants and animals.
The importance of luminosity in “enclosed” areas is underlined.
Moreover, the nature experience produces in participants all the indications of a state of mindfulness.
While considering that each nature experience is individual and that each landscape answers to a diversity of uses, the interdisciplinary model tested in this study allowed for the identification of specific landscape features that generate a state of well-being and mindfulness.
This approach would need to be validated through replication but proves promising to specify the relationship between green spaces and human health.
These benefits can be influenced by landscape features as well as participants’ individual characteristics.
To further explore this knowledge, we test an interdisciplinary approach to identify which urban park characteristics generate well-being and induce a state of mindfulness.
Through an in situ experiment, we analyse the nature experience of 40 participants during a 20-min walk through two different landscapes in an urban park located in Angers, France.
An interdisciplinary approach relying on landscape sciences and psychology is implemented.
A landscape analysis offers an objective assessment of the two landscapes’ atmospheres.
The participants’ anxiety level, positive and negative effects, connectedness to nature and past nature experiences are assessed through psychometric scales.
Additionally, a phenomenological interview is conducted to access each participant’s subjective experience.
These verbal productions are submitted to thematic and lexical analysis to investigate to what extent cognitive and emotional representations are affected by specific landscape features.
Results show that landscape characteristics and participant’s well-being are indeed linked.
In particular, well-being is associated with specific landscape features and the presence of plants and animals.
The importance of luminosity in “enclosed” areas is underlined.
Moreover, the nature experience produces in participants all the indications of a state of mindfulness.
While considering that each nature experience is individual and that each landscape answers to a diversity of uses, the interdisciplinary model tested in this study allowed for the identification of specific landscape features that generate a state of well-being and mindfulness.
This approach would need to be validated through replication but proves promising to specify the relationship between green spaces and human health.
Authors
P. Laïlle, B. Vajou, N. Béziau, A. Meyer-Grandbastien, B. Fromage, G. Galopin
Keywords
well-being, environmental features, mindfulness, emotions, cognition
Groups involved
- Division Landscape and Urban Horticulture
- Division Horticulture for Human Health
- Division Greenhouse and Indoor Production Horticulture
- Division Horticulture for Development
- Division Precision Horticulture and Engineering
- Division Vegetables, Roots and Tubers
- Commission Agroecology and Organic Farming Systems
- Working Group Urban Horticulture
- Working Group Landscape Horticulture
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