Eye movement patterns drive stress reduction during Japanese garden viewing
Visual stimuli of a well-designed garden can elicit significant stress reduction. Our data suggest that the composition of the elements and the attention to maintenance of a garden result in viewers shifting their gaze more frequently and more quickly. These appear to be the key drivers behind the stress reduction effect. Although we had hypothesized that specific visual elements in the garden would be responsible for reducing measures of stress, our data instead suggest that it is the overall pattern of rapid horizontal eye movements, induced by the garden design, that drives the observed stress reduction. We draw an analogy between our results and the technique known as EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) whose practitioners use rapid gaze shifts to elicit stress reduction.
Authors
- Hiroki Takase (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0009-1946-1839)
- Minkai Sun (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8246-6343)
- Seiko Goto (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4681-6932)
- Karl Herrup (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7786-5844)
- Tiankai Liang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0006-1582-600X)
- Isamu Poy (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4625-1310)
- Keita Yamaguchi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0057-5766)
- Tomoki Kato
- Akitoshi Koga (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0005-4090-0921)
Institutions
- Shinshu University (JP)
- University of Pittsburgh (US)
- Kyoto University (JP)
- Suzhou University of Science and Technology (CN)
- Kyoto City University of Arts (JP)
- University of California San Diego (US)
- Kyoto University of Art and Design (JP)
- Nagasaki University (JP)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Frontiers in Neuroscience
- Published
- 2025-05-15
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2025.1581080
- Primary Topic
- Urban Green Space and Health
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- Japan Society for the Promotion of Science