Abstract Although previous studies have shown that both forest and natural light exposure can significantly affect psycho-physiological responses, how different natural light levels influence stress recovery efficacy in forest environments has not been discussed yet. A pretest-posttest design was used to explore the influence of varying brightness levels on stress recovery effect in a virtual forest environment. Six immersive virtual environments (IVE) stimuli were generated from the lightest to the darkest through virtual reality simulation software. A total of 120 participants viewed the IVE using head-mounted display. Physiological and psychological responses and perceived environmental features were evaluated. The results of the present study confirmed previous findings that bright sunlight scenes (i.e., the lightest, lighter, light) allay stress more effectively than the darkest night scenes in the virtual forest. Another noteworthy finding is that dark scenes, such as daybreak without sunlight but with a little brightness, also has this property. An unexpected finding was that exposure to the natural light of medium-brightness (i.e., lighter, light, dark) in the virtual forest could significantly reduce the stress of the participants, compared to overly bright (i.e., the lightest level) or overly dark (i.e., the darkest level) levels. In addition, this study also found that perceived environmental features (i.e., maintenance, visibility, accessibility, variety, and perceived safety) and stress recovery were associated with different levels of brightness in the simulated forest environment. The results of this study contribute to existing forest therapy theory and offer insights for follow-up research to explore forest therapy and bright light therapy.

中文翻译：

---

在模拟自然光下观看虚拟现实森林时亮度水平对压力恢复的影响

摘要 尽管先前的研究表明，森林和自然光照射都会显着影响心理生理反应，但尚未讨论不同的自然光水平如何影响森林环境中的压力恢复效果。前测后测设计用于探索不同亮度水平对虚拟森林环境中压力恢复效果的影响。通过虚拟现实模拟软件从最亮到最暗生成六个沉浸式虚拟环境 (IVE) 刺激。共有 120 名参与者使用头戴式显示器观看了 IVE。评估生理和心理反应以及感知的环境特征。本研究的结果证实了先前的发现，即明亮的阳光场景（即最亮、最亮、光）比虚拟森林中最黑暗的夜景更有效地缓解压力。另一个值得注意的发现是黑暗的场景，例如没有阳光但有一点亮度的黎明，也具有这种特性。一个意外的发现是，与过亮（即最亮级别）或过暗相比，在虚拟森林中暴露于中等亮度（即较亮、较亮、较暗）的自然光下可以显着减轻参与者的压力（即，最暗的级别）级别。此外，本研究还发现，感知环境特征（即维护、能见度、可达性、多样性和感知安全性）和压力恢复与模拟森林环境中不同程度的亮度相关。