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Background. Recent literature has reported that immersions in nature provide diverse health benefits amongst which it is to highlight the capacity for Stress Level Reduction (SLR). However prior studies have mainly focused on parks and wild natural enclaves, and thus the role urban Green Infrastructure (UGI) planning can play in SLR is to be further understood. Furthermore, studies that focus on combined subjective and objective documentation methods accounting for physiological and psychological SLR are still very limited. Aims. Aiming to fill this research gap, we propose a novel research methodology that builds on our previous work, where biometric sensing, virtual reality immersions using 360° static urban imagery, and participant questionnaires were combined to document physiological and psychological SLR (Llaguno-Munitxa et al 2022). This approach has been complemented with a i) detailed geospatial analysis -computing the UGI typology, geometry, and proximity- present in the chosen urban scenes, and ii) video-based virtual reality immersions. This methodology enables a detailed understanding on the role distinct green infrastructure characteristics play in SLR. Furthermore, it has enabled us to compare the results obtained using 360° image-based urban scene immersions which focus solely on visual perception, with video immersions with sound, and thus involving multi-modal perception. Methods. The documentation of green accessibility has been developed combining remote sensing and image processing technologies. Through an aerial survey, the normalized difference vegetation index has been computed. Through a pedestrian-level survey and using 360° imagery and semantic classification, novel indicators to document the UGI types, ratios, and their position relative to the camera have been computed. On the other hand, for the participant testing, virtual reality with image and video-based urban scene immersion, eye-tracking technologies, biometric sensing for heart rate variability, and participant questionnaires have been combined, to evaluate the psychological and physiological SLR capacity provided by visual accessibility to distinct UGI characteristics. The proposed UGI characterization has been developed for 12 squares located in two of the densest neighbourhoods - St. Gilles and Molenbeek - of the Brussels Capital Region. 360° images and videos were captured for each square and surrounding neighbourhood. Initially the Green View Index (GVI) (Ye et al 2019) was computed, and a square ‘greenness’ ordering was developed. This was followed by the participant testing (N=68) from which half were exposed to still 360° images of the selected urban scenes which were projected onto a virtual reality sphere during 1-minute duration. The remaining participants were exposed to video recordings, which were also 1 minute long. It is important to note that the 360° video-based immersion included the sound of the scene as well as the changes in the lighting conditions or urban occupation patterns that took place during the recorded minute. The two methods were tested to compare the results of unimodal – solely visual, and multimodal stimuli – visual and auditory. Results. The eye-tracking data results have showed significant differences. Fixation counts decreased in the squares with higher green view accessibly, which is an indicator of SLR. The Perceived Restorativeness Scale (PRS) questionnaire also reported highly significant differences with higher global scores for the higher GVI squares. The image-based immersions and the video-based immersions provided comparable results however with larger differences between the green and not green squares for the case of videos. Conclusions. Making use of pedestrian level 360° images and videos of 12 squares located at the Brussels Capital Region, a research methodology combining biometric and immersive media technologies, and participant questionnaires has been proposed to evaluate the stress level reduction potential of urban green infrastructure implemented in urban squares. In agreement with prior literature focused on nature vs urban immersions, the eye tracking and questionnaire results have shown that urban green infrastructure can also contribute to stress level reduction. That is, these results suggest that visual access to urban green areas can enable a potential reduction of stress level for a better mental health of urban dwellers.
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Llaguno, M., Edwards, M., Stéphane Grade, Lacroix, E., Letesson, C., Agudo Sierra, E., Altomonte, S., Vander Meulen, M., & Guillet, A. (2023). Urban forest views for stress level reduction. ISIAQ - Healthy Buildings Europe 2023. Published. 18th Healthy Buildings Europe Conference, Aachen. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/215657 (Original work published 2023)