Does increasing biodiversity in an urban woodland setting promote positive emotional responses in humans? A stress recovery experiment using 360-degree videos of an urban woodland

biodiversity to be “good” or “very good”, those who noticed the flowers were compared with those who did not (i.e. controlling for the effect of perceived biodiversity). The interaction was again significant (p = 0.045), confirming that those who noticed the flowers showed signifi- cantly higher Positive Affect compared with those who noticed other things. Participants who commented on natural sounds, including both the sound of the breeze and birdsong, reported significantly lower NA scores (p = 0.01) than the rest of the partici- pants. The overall difference in PA scores, on the other hand, was non-significant (p = 0.11). Participants who noticed the trees reported both lower Negative Affect (p = 0.05, Table 3) and lower Positive Affect scores overall (p = 0.21), compared to the other participants. The analysis of Positive Affect highlighted a significant interaction (p = 0.01). Participants who noticed the trees showed significantly higher scores in Positive Affect after the video, com- pared to the rest of the participants. However, when controlling for the effect of perceived bio- diversity (see above) the interaction was no longer significant (p = 0.09). Time spent outdoors and nature connectedness The time spent outdoors during childhood did not have a significant effect on the scores for Negative or Positive Affect (NA p = 0.24; PA p = 0.18, Table 3). The level of Nature Connectedness had no influence on NA scores (p = 0.81), but showed a significant overall effect on PA scores (p = 0.008). Those moderately connected to nature had

significantly higher PA scores than those who considered themselves poorly connected (INS = 5 vs INS = 1; p = 0.049). The least nature-connected participants reported decreasing PA scores throughout the procedure. Fig 4. Changes in Negative Affect (Left) and Positive Affect (Right) scores after the video stage for those groups who perceived the biodiversity as ‘Bad/Neutral’, ‘Good’ or ‘Very Good’. Letters denote statistical differences. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0297179.g004 PLOS ONE Does increasing biodiversity in an urban woodland setting, promote positive emotional responses in humans? PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0297179 February 7, 2024 11 / 20