SATO Wataru Laboratory

Positive emotional responses while walking along a forest route compared with a city route: Evidence from wearable facial electromyography

(Sato, Tokuchi, & Yoshikawa: Sci Rep)

The potential of forests to induce positive emotions is attracting increasing attention.
Previous studies have reported that walking in forests, compared with cities, is associated with more positive subjective experiences and physiological changes in the autonomic nervous system.

However, because autonomic activity primarily reflects emotional arousal rather than valence, physiological evidence for positive emotional elicitation has remained limited.
We hypothesized that facial electromyography (EMG) could address this gap.

We used a wearable device to obtain EMG measurements from the corrugator supercilii and zygomaticus major while participants walked along a forest route or a city route.
First-person video was recorded, and cued-recall procedures were used to obtain dynamic valence ratings.

Participants reported more positive valence and showed reduced corrugator supercilii activity while walking along the along forest route than the city route.
Dynamic valence ratings were also associated with corrugator supercilii activity.

These findings provide initial evidence of positive emotional responses, reflected in both subjective states and facial muscle activity, while walking along the forest route compared with the city route.

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