Increasingly, urban planners are adopting virtual reality (VR) in designing urban green spaces (UGS) to visualize landscape designs in immersive 3D. However, the psychological effect of green spaces from the experience in VR may differ from the actual experience in the real world. In this paper, we systematically reviewed studies in the literature that conducted experiments to investigate the psychological benefits of nature in both VR and the real world to study nature in VR anchored to nature in the real world. We separated these studies based on the type of VR setup used, specifically, 360-degree video or 3D virtual environment, and established a framework of commonly used standard questionnaires used to measure the perceived mental states. The most common questionnaires include Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS), Perceived Restorativeness Scale (PRS), and Restoration Outcome Scale (ROS). Although the results from studies that used 360-degree video were less clear, results from studies that used 3D virtual environments provided evidence that virtual nature is comparable to real-world nature and thus showed promise that UGS designs in VR can transfer into real-world designs to yield similar physiological effects.

(2013). Digital reconnaissance. Journal of Landscape Architecture: Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 74-81.

Exposure to urban green spaces has been associated with mental wellbeing, but the neural responses to specific visual properties of urban green spaces remain unclear. This study investigated regional electroencephalogram (EEG) responses to latent visual dimensions of virtual urban green space exposures. This study used a quantitative scene-based approach that extracted 41 visual metrics to capture the heterogeneous structural properties of 24 panoramic urban green images. EEG recordings were analyzed from 150 participants, each of whom viewed eight randomly selected images repeated three times. Dimension-wise factor analysis with varimax rotation was used to derive latent factor scores for four conceptual dimensions: naturalness, complexity, coherence, and visual scale. These factors were then used as predictors in crossed mixed-effects models of regional EEG relative power changes. The hypothesis-driven primary analysis showed a significant and positive association between parietal alpha–theta activity and a naturalness factor reflecting green–grey scene compositions. Exploratory frontal associations with a terrain-related visual scale factor reached nominal significance but did not survive false discovery rate correction. Overall, the findings support a quantitative, feature-based approach for linking urban green space structure with regional neurophysiological responses. This study provides a methodological step toward more evidence-informed assessment of smart and sustainable urban environments.