A study of the effects of a natural virtual environment on creativity during a product design activity. (June 2021) - Fleury, Sylvain
Highlights: Natural landscapes are known to stimulate divergent creativity. Participants are more creative in an natural virtual environment than in neutral environment. Natural environment is recommended in virtual reality tools for upstream phases of design. Abstract: Numerous studies have shown a beneficial effect of exposing people to natural landscapes and plants on their well-being and attentional functioning. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effects of a natural virtual environment on creativity in a task consisting of sketching ideas of creative solutions to a problem. The participants in this experiment were asked to sketch ideas of innovative workstation for a person in a wheelchair. To do this, they used a virtual reality sketching tool. They performed this task once in a neutral environment (all in the dark), one in a natural virtual envirnment (forest) and once in a non-natural environment (office). The results revealed that people tend to be more creative in this task when they are immersed in a natural environment than when they are in a neutral environment without any vegetation.