Exposure to ‘real’ nature can increase positive affect and decrease negative affect, but direct access is not always possible. For example for people in health/care settings who often experience chronic boredom. In these settings ‘virtual’ forms of nature may also have mood-related benefits (e.g. reducing boredom) but it has been difficult to separate effects of nature content from those of delivery mode. The present laboratory-based study explored whether exposure to three different delivery modes of virtual nature could reduce negative affect (including boredom) and/or increase positive affect.

Adult volunteer participants took part in a boredom induction task (to simulate the emotional state of many people in health/care settings) before being randomly assigned to view/interact with a virtual underwater coral reef in one of three experimental conditions: (a) 2D video viewed on a high-definition TV screen; (b) 360⁰ video VR (360-VR) viewed via a head mounted display (HMD); or (c) interactive computer-generated VR (CG-VR), also viewed via a HMD and interacted with using a hand-held controller. Visual and auditory content was closely matched across conditions with help from the BBC’s Blue Planet II series team.

Supporting the basic contention, 5 min of virtual exposure to a coral reef environment reduced state boredom, from experimentally-augmented pre-intervention levels. Contrary to predictions, these reductions were not significantly different across conditions: TV was as effective as matched content experienced via two forms of virtual reality. Nevertheless, participants in the CG-VR condition did show greater improvements in positive emotions compared with TV, which appeared to be mediated through greater feelings of presence and increased nature connectedness. Results will be used to inform the design of a field trial with individuals in real care settings who may be experiencing chronic boredom, but may also be informative for building nature connectedness among specific groups (e.g. adolescents).