This paper is a systematic review of quantitative studies conducted on the benefits of visiting gardens and gardening therapy for people with dementia (PWD) in an effort to assess the effectiveness of such treatments and obtain information on the most appropriate garden design for this population. This review followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Protocols (PRISMA) guidelines. Four databases were searched (PubMed, Web of Science, PsycINFO, Scopus), with no time limits. Out of a total of 480 articles considered, 16 studies were selected for review. In all but two of the studies examined, gardening therapy and the use of therapeutic gardens induced psychophysiological improvements in PWD. The areas showing the greatest effects were Engagement, Agitation, Depression/Mood, Stress, and Medication. It also emerged that interest in this sphere has been growing in the last decade, but there is still a shortage of empirical evidence of the beneficial effects of therapeutic gardens in relation to the type and severity of dementia, and of garden design guidelines. Despite the limited number of studies investigated, the review confirmed the benefits of gardening and therapeutic gardens in PWD. There is nonetheless a need to conduct more quantitative research to support currently-available evidence and generate more information, focusing on garden design criteria, in-garden activities, the type and severity of dementia examined, and effects on caregivers as well as on PWD.

Wayfinding (WF) is the ability to move around efficiently and find the way from a starting point to a destination. It is a component of spatial navigation, a coordinate and goal-directed movement of one’s self through the environment. In the present study, the relationship between WF tasks (route tracing and shortcut finding) and individual factors were explored with the hypothesis that WF tasks would be predicted by different types of cognitive, affective, motivational variables, and personality factors. A group of 116 university students (88 F.) were conducted along a route in a virtual environment and then asked first to trace the same route again, and then to find a shortcut between the start and end points. Several instruments assessing visuospatial working memory, mental rotation ability, self-efficacy, spatial anxiety, positive attitude to exploring, and personality traits were administered. The results showed that a latent spatial ability factor (measured with the visuospatial working memory and mental rotations tests) – controlled for gender – predicted route-tracing performance, while self-report measures of anxiety, efficacy, and pleasure in exploring, and some personality traits were more likely to predict shortcut-finding performance. We concluded that both personality and cognitive abilities affect WF performance, but differently, depending on the requirements of the task.

The aim of the present study was to examine how different domains of self-esteem (social, competence, affect, academic, family, and physical) relate to self-reported physical and mental health, lower back pain (LBP), smoking, and physical exercise in a sample of adolescents. A sample of 326 adolescents 14–19 years old completed several self-report questionnaires collecting epidemiological data, and information on their LBP, smoking, and physical exercise, the Short Form Health Survey (SF-36), and the Multidimensional Self-Concept Scale. Pearson’s correlations were calculated between their self-esteem scores and their physical and mental health scores. Three multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVAs) were performed to estimate associations between self-esteem and LBP, smoking, and physical exercise. Self-esteem (total and subcomponent scores) correlated positively with physical and mental health, and with physical exercise, and negatively with smoking. The results also confirm gender-related differences in self-esteem, in favor of boys. This study offers the first findings on the relationship between different domains of self-esteem and a variety of health outcomes in an adolescent population. The results suggest that multidimensional interventions could be devised to improve adolescents’ physical health by promoting their physical exercise, and to prevent their smoking by nurturing their self-esteem.

Forest school is a form of outdoor learning that takes children into regular and repeated learning experiences in natural settings. Being based on a comprehensive experience with nature, it is assumed to be beneficial for learning and to promote restorative effects on cognitive and emotional function in preschool children. This review aimed to examine the available evidence on the benefits of forest school compared to indoor school activities in children aged 3 to 6 years. We searched for studies on forest school for preschool children in PsycInfo, JSTOR, and Scopus, with no restriction on publication year. The risk of bias was assessed using Joanna Briggs’s criteria for quasi-experimental design. Of the 190 articles identified, 16 studies were reviewed (N = 1560). Higher benefits were found in children attending forest school compared to those attending indoor school in various areas of child development: cognitive function, motor coordination and balance, connectedness to nature, and health and well-being outcomes. There is, however, still a shortage of empirical evidence, and the methodological quality of most studies was limited. The literature on forest schools for preschool children in general supports positive effects in a wide range of variables that promote child health and development, but more evidence is needed to assess their effectiveness. Due to the methodological weaknesses of the reviewed studies, one should interpret their findings with caution.

Interpersonal space (IPS) is the area surrounding our own bodies in which we interact comfortably with other individuals. During the COVID-19 pandemic, keeping larger IPS than usual, along with wearing a face mask, is one of the most effective measures to slow down the COVID-19 outbreak. Here, we explore the contribution of actual and perceived risk of contagion and anxiety levels in regulating our preferred social distance from other people during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy. In this study, 1293 individuals from six Italian regions with different levels of actual risk of infection participated in an online survey assessing their perceived risk to be infected, level of anxiety and IPS. Two tasks were adopted as measures of interpersonal distance: the Interpersonal Visual Analogue Scale and a questionnaire evaluating interpersonal distance with and without face mask. The results showed that the IPS regulation was affected by how people subjectively perceived COVID-19 risk and the related level of anxiety, not by actual objective risk. This clarifies that the role of threat in prompting avoidant behaviors expressed in increased IPS does not merely reflect environmental events but rather how they are subjectively experienced and represented.

We investigated whether the alignment effect (Levine et al, 1982 Journal of Experimental Psychology: General111 157–175) is influenced by mental rotation abilities. In two experiments, groups of undergraduate students with high and low performance in mental rotation tasks were required to study either schematic (experiment 1) or more complex (experiment 2) maps, and to perform a number of pointing tasks adopting a perspective which could be aligned, misaligned (45°, 135°), or counteraligned (180°) with the perspective assumed during learning. Cognitive styles in spatial representation have also been considered. Results of experiment 1 show that people with low performance in mental rotation tasks prefer to adopt a representation of space focused more on landmarks. Their performance in the pointing tasks depends on the alignment conditions, with more errors in the counteraligned condition followed by the two misaligned and aligned ones. In contrast to this, high-ability mental rotators prefer survey and route spatial representations and are affected only by the aligned and non-aligned conditions. In the second experiment, practice was studied as a function of mental rotation and alignment. The group high in mental rotation ability was found to be free from the alignment effect in the pointing tasks performed after the final of four learning phases.