BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Mindfulness
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1637669
This article is part of the Research TopicTechnologies for Mental Health: Toward a Computational Psychology?View all articles
The potential of Virtual Natural Environments: a Critical Analysis of a VR-based Mindfulness Approach
Provisionally accepted
- Department of Developmental and Social Psychology, Faculty of Medicine and Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy
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The relationship between environmental factors and mental health is widely acknowledged in the field of Environmental Psychology, with nature-based therapies emerging as a promising approach for mental health treatment. In particular, nature has been recognized as a valuable complementary resource for mindfulness practice. At the same time, Virtual Reality (VR) provides innovative solutions to the challenges posed by conventional mindfulness practices, reducing external distractions and fostering an immersive, presentfocused experience. This study explores the effects of a nature VR-based and a conventional mindfulness intervention on the mindfulness state (decentering and curiosity) and emotions (positive and negative), with the aim of determining whether virtual nature can enhance mindfulness practice. The findings indicate that both conventional and VR-based mindfulness interventions effectively enhanced decentering; however, only the VR-based intervention significantly reduced negative emotions, suggesting that virtual natural environments may play a role in emotional regulation, as supported by previous research. On the other hand, no significant changes were observed in terms of curiosity or positive emotions across both intervention types.Overall, this study contributes to the understanding of how nature-based therapies and immersive technologies can support mental health treatment, providing a foundation for future research on the potential synergy between VR, mindfulness, and natural environments.
Keywords: nature, virtual reality, mindfulness, Emotions, environmental psychology
Received: 30 May 2025; Accepted: 03 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Marocco, Vitale, Grossi, Presaghi and Talamo. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Silvia Marocco, Department of Developmental and Social Psychology, Faculty of Medicine and Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy
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