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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Neurosci.

Sec. Visual Neuroscience

Volume 19 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fnins.2025.1581080

This article is part of the Research Topic Visual Perception and Mental Imagery in Aging, Health and Disease View all 5 articles

Eye Movement Patterns Drive Stress Reduction during Japanese Garden Viewing

Provisionally accepted
Seiko Goto Seiko Goto 1*Hiroki Takase Hiroki Takase 2Keita Yamaguchi Keita Yamaguchi 3Kato Tomoki Kato Tomoki 4Minkai Sun Minkai Sun 5Aoi Koga Aoi Koga 1Tiankai Liang Tiankai Liang 1Isamu A Poy Isamu A Poy 6Karl Herrup Karl Herrup 7
  • 1 Nagasaki University, Nagasaki, Japan
  • 2 Shinshu University, Matsumoto, Nagano, Japan
  • 3 Kyoto University, Kyoto, Kyōto, Japan
  • 4 Kyoto University of the Arts, Sakyō-ku, Kyoto, Japan
  • 5 Suzhou University of Science and Technology, Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, China
  • 6 University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California, United States
  • 7 University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Aim: The aim of this study is to clarify the role of eye movements in the reduction of physiological and psychological metrics of stress during Japanese garden viewing.Methods: We chose the well-structured Murin-an garden as a test site and a garden with similar visual elements but less well-maintained as a control site. We measured pulse rates and eye movements to monitor physiological responses. Psychological responses were tracked with the POMS2 Brief form and a short questionnaire.Results: We found that the Murin-an garden was more effective in decreasing pulse rate and improving mood. Also, in the Murin-an garden the participants' gaze ranged more broadly across the visual field and moved more rapidly. Contrary to our expectations, in neither garden did pulse rate rise or fall based on the particular object a participant was viewing.Conclusion: 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.

    Keywords: Murin-an, Pulse Rate, EMDR, eye tracking, visual stimuli

    Received: 21 Feb 2025; Accepted: 26 Mar 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Goto, Takase, Yamaguchi, Tomoki, Sun, Koga, Liang, Poy and Herrup. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Seiko Goto, Nagasaki University, Nagasaki, Japan

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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