Investigating the relationship between environmental characteristics and their psychological impact on humans through geo-enabled survey and geospatial analysis

Abstract

Previous research has indicated that natural elements in the environment provide
therapeutic functions for human psychological well-being. Mechanisms of the therapeutic
functions of natural elements have been proposed, but many questions remain unanswered. For
example, little is known about whether there exist significant differences in how individuals
respond to their environmental settings. As individuals’ subjective perceptions of the
environment vary greatly, a consistent relationship between the environment and its effects
may not exist among people with different identities and backgrounds. This project uses geo-
enabled survey to survey students from diverse backgrounds on a suburban university campus
about their perceptions of their surrounding environment and related psychological measures.
The spatial data is mapped to visualize the varying environmental perceptions and correlate with
characteristics of the environment derived from an aerial image to test the hypothesis that
environmental perception and the therapeutic functions of natural elements are highly individual
thus no consistent relationship exists among a diverse population between aspects of the
environment and people’s psychological responses.