Revisiting Virtual Nature Interventions: A Meta-Analytic Review on Positive Emotion and Stress Communication in Academic Contexts

Abstract

With rising urban stress and limited access to restorative natural environments, scholars have increasingly explored virtual nature as an emerging pathway for emotional recovery and stress communication. This meta-analytic review synthesizes current empirical findings on virtual nature interventions, including virtual reality (VR) forest environments, to evaluate their effectiveness in enhancing positive emotion and alleviating stress in academic and therapeutic contexts. Across the reviewed studies, virtual nature exposure reliably contributes to short-term emotional benefits, such as reduced physiological arousal, lower perceived stress, and improved affective states. Interventions that integrate guided therapeutic elements—such as mindfulness, reflective tasks, or stress-communication prompts—tend to yield stronger and more sustainable psychological outcomes than passive exposure alone. Evidence also suggests that water-enriched landscapes and immersive sensory designs may amplify restorative effects. However, the heterogeneity in intervention design, duration, and measurement tools remains a barrier to cumulative theory-building. Overall, virtual nature represents a promising modality for scalable emotional well-being interventions, and future research should prioritize standardized protocols, long-term impact tracking, and deeper investigation into communication mechanisms that translate virtual experiences into meaningful stress recovery in academic populations.