Greenery and bright colours in urban spaces can lower stress levels, says study

A team of researchers at the University of Lille in France have been able to conclude that the presence of bright colours and greenery in urban spaces can boost happiness and calmness in humans.

The study has been published in Frontiers in Virtual Reality.

The team used virtual reality to test their 36 volunteers' reactions to variations of minimalist concrete, glass and metal urban landscapes.

The volunteers wore VR headsets with eye trackers and researchers kept tweaking their surroundings by adding bright colours such as pink and yellow and different combinations of vegetation in contrasting and angular patterns.

While researchers tweaked their surroundings, the eye trackers began tracking the volunteer’s blink rate to record what the volunteers were most interested in. After this, the volunteers filled a questionnaire detailing their experience.

RESULTS: The VR results revealed that volunteers walked slower and showed higher heart rates in green urban landscapes than in grey.

Researchers were able to conclude that greenery, in terms of trees and grass can offer beneficial levels of fascination and low stress levels in humans. The volunteers were seen walking with their heads higher, looking forward and around in the presence of greenery.

The researchers were also able to conclude that while colour alone is not enough to restore the effect of greenery, presence of bright colours in urban spaces can boost fascination, curiosity and physiological levels of arousal in humans.

Lead author of the study and cognitive psychology professor at  University of Lille, Yvonne Delevoye-Turrell said, “We think that the variations in human behaviour obtained in virtual reality can predict the changes that would be obtained in the natural settings.”

She also said that in further studies, she intends to create multi-sensory environments by incorporating physiological changes such as temperature, smells and sound.