Recovery Effect of Different Virtual Natural Environments on Stress in Short-Term Isolation Tasks

On deep space missions, astronauts must endure isolated, confined and extreme (ICE) environments with no access to normal earthly comforts, which can cause severe physical and emotional stress. The use of virtual reality to relieve astronaut stress is an area of research with great potential. Further research on methods of recovery from psychological stress is needed. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of using virtual reality to simulate the natural earth environment in different seasons on stress recovery for people in short-term isolation tasks. Through the evaluation (N = 24), we found that the natural scenes provided by the VR headset had a significant stress-reducing effect for people in isolated and enclosed environments. In addition, seasonal differences had varying stress relieving effect, and the spring group had the best subjective psychological effect on stress reduction. This paper contributes to the methodology of psychological support for people in isolated, enclosed environments and to future space exploration.