New Cross-Sensory Approach to Designing Restorative Virtual Environments

Francisco Ortega; Rachel Masters

REVIEW 3 major objections 4 minor 27 references

New Cross-Sensory Approach to Designing Restorative Virtual Environments

T0 review · 3 major / 4 minor · reviewed 2026-07-09 · glm-5.2

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Pith's one-line read When senses collide in VR nature, they may heal or harm

desk verdict Position paper calling for cross-sensory (not merely additive) research in VR nature environments; clearly written but conceptually underspecified read the letter →

arxiv 2607.06901 v1 pith:XKCDY2SC submitted 2026-07-08 cs.HC

Rachel Masters , Francisco Ortega This is my paper · ORCID

classification cs.HC

keywords naturevirtualcross-sensoryinteractionsstressvnescertaincurrent

verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal

The pith

A machine-rendered reading of the paper's core claim, the machinery that carries it, and where it could break.

The reading

This paper argues that the standard approach to building restorative virtual nature environments — adding one sense at a time on top of visuals — misses something fundamental. The authors contend that senses do not simply stack additively in virtual reality nature scenes; they interact. A sound that fits the scene can deepen relaxation, but the same type of sound placed in the wrong visual context can feel threatening and undermine the restorative goal. The paper calls for a research program that systematically studies how audio, visuals, smell, and touch influence each other's perception, rather than studying each sense in isolation. The central object carrying the argument is the cross-sensory interaction: the way one sensory channel changes the meaning and emotional valence of another. The authors propose specific experimental designs — matching and mismatching audio with visuals, introducing scents that do or do not fit the scene, and manipulating wind and temperature alongside visual content — to map these interactions. If the authors are right, the difference between a stress-reducing virtual forest and a stress-inducing one lies not in any single sensory channel but in the congruence or conflict among them.

What carries the argument

The argument turns on a distinction between two models of multisensory combination. The additive model treats each sense as contributing an independent positive effect: add a pleasant sound, get more relaxation; add a pleasant scent, get more still. The cross-sensory model says the effect of adding a sense depends on its fit with the other senses already present — a sound that is relaxing in one visual context can be anxiety-inducing in another. The authors propose that congruence — the degree to which a sensory input matches the expectations set by the other channels — is the variable that determines whether a multisensory addition increases or decreases stress reduction. They suggest this:

What would settle it

A controlled experiment showing that the stress-reduction effect of adding a second or third sensory channel to a VR nature scene is fully predicted by the sum of each channel's individual effect, with no residual variance attributable to their combination, would refute the paper's central distinction.

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Extended reading notes

Core claim

The paper's central claim is that cross-sensory interactions in virtual nature environments are qualitatively distinct from additive sensory effects and must be studied directly to design environments that actually reduce stress. The authors identify the congruence between sensory channels — whether a sound, smell, or tactile sensation fits the visual scene — as the mechanism that determines whether an added sense helps or harms the restorative experience. They do not present new experimental data; instead they reframe existing observations (rustling sounds feeling threatening when mismatched to visuals, unexpected air-breeze feedback enhancing immersion) as evidence that the field's current

Load-bearing premise

The paper assumes that cross-sensory interactions are qualitatively different from additive sensory effects, but supports this only with indirect observations — anecdotal participant comments about air vents and the intuitive example of rustling sounds feeling threatening — rather than controlled experiments that isolate interaction effects from simple addition.

Editorial extensions

If this is right

Designers of VR nature environments for clinical use (hospitals, nursing homes, PTSD treatment) would need to test sensory congruence systematically, not just add pleasant stimuli.
A mismatched sensory channel could actively harm vulnerable users — e.g., a threatening sound in a therapeutic VR forest could raise stress rather than lower it in a PTSD patient.
Scent technology design for VR would need to prioritize temporal and semantic matching with the audio-visual scene, not just pleasantness of the scent itself.
Restorative VR research would shift from asking 'which senses should we include?' to asking 'which combinations of senses produce congruence, and which produce conflict?'

Reading between the lines

Editorial extensions of the paper, not claims the author makes directly.

If cross-sensory congruence is the key variable, then there should be an optimal level of sensory richness: too few senses and congruence is trivial; too many and the probability of mismatch rises. This predicts an inverted-U relationship between sensory channel count and stress reduction.
The congruence mechanism might extend to memory and learning VR environments, not just restorative ones — a mismatched soundtrack in an educational VR simulation could impair retention by triggering low-level threat vigilance.
If the effect is driven by expectation violation rather than sensory conflict per se, then novel or unfamiliar nature scenes might be more tolerant of sensory mismatch than familiar ones, because users have weaker prior expectations to violate.

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Editorial analysis

A structured set of objections, weighed in public.

Desk editor's note, referee report, and a circularity audit.

Desk Editor's Note

read the letter

Short version: this is a well-organized position paper that identifies a real gap in multisensory VR nature environment (VNE) research and proposes a research agenda. It is not a research paper — no new data, no new methods, no formal derivations. The central claim is that cross-sensory interactions in VNEs are underexplored and may differ qualitatively from additive sensory effects. That is a reasonable thesis, but the paper does not do the conceptual work needed to make it actionable. Worth a serious referee as a workshop position paper or short communication, but not a full research contribution. The stress-test concern about the missing operational definition is the right thing to flag, and it does land. The paper repeatedly contrasts 'additive' with 'cross-sensory' interactions but never specifies what would distinguish them empirically. The rustling-sounds example (§4.1) is consistent with both accounts: the sound adds a threat cue (additive) or changes visual perception (interactive). The air vent anecdote (§4.3) has the same problem. Without a criterion for what counts as a cross-sensory interaction versus an additive effect, the proposed experiments in §4.1–4.3 cannot be evaluated for whether they would actually test the distinction. That said, the paper does some things right. The literature review is focused and honest about the state of the field. The authors correctly note that systematic reviews (refs [8], [15]) have already called for cross-sensory frameworks, which means they are not overclaiming novelty. The research directions in §4 are concrete enough to be useful starting points — the scent-matching and wind-temperature proposals are reasonable experimental designs. The self-citations ([19], [20], [21]) support the motivation without circular reasoning. The reader's scores look fair to me. Novelty at 3.0 is about right — the cross-sensory observation is well established in perceptual psychology, and the application to VNEs is incremental. Soundness at 4.0 is generous but defensible for a position paper with no formal claims to validate. The significance-conditional-on-future-work framing is accurate. This paper is for VNE researchers and HCI groups working on therapeutic VR who want a roadmap for multisensory experiments. It would benefit from a paragraph defining what operational criterion would separate additive from interactive effects — even a conceptual one. Without that, the agenda is suggestive but not yet rigorous. I would send it to a serious referee at a venue that accepts position papers, with the expectation that the reviewers push hard on the definitional gap.

Referee Report

3 major / 4 minor

Summary. This position paper argues that cross-sensory interactions in virtual reality nature environments (VNEs) are underexplored and that future research should move beyond treating senses as merely additive. The authors review current multisensory VNE research (Section 2), focusing on audio, visual, scent, and touch components, and propose future research avenues for studying cross-sensory interactions across these modalities (Section 4). The manuscript is framed as a call to action for the VNE research community to investigate how interactions between senses—rather than isolated sensory additions—affect stress reduction and attention restoration.

Significance. The manuscript identifies a genuine gap in the VNE literature: while multisensory environments are increasingly studied, the interaction effects between senses (as opposed to additive effects) have received little systematic attention. The proposed research directions in Section 4 are concrete and actionable, including specific experimental designs for audio-visual matching (§4.1), scent congruence (§4.2), and wind/temperature manipulation (§4.3). The observation that participants spontaneously reported air vent breezes enhancing visual nature perception (§4.3, citing [20]) is a useful empirical anchor. The relevance to applied settings (hospitals, nursing homes, PTSD treatment) is well-motivated.

major comments (3)

The central distinction between 'additive' and 'cross-sensory' interactions is never operationally defined. The abstract, Section 3, and Section 4 all rest on the claim that current frameworks treat senses as additive while cross-sensory interactions are qualitatively different and more complex. However, the manuscript provides no conceptual criterion for what would distinguish an additive effect from a cross-sensory interaction. The examples given—rustling sounds feeling threatening when mismatched to visuals (§4.1) and air vent breezes enhancing visuals (§4.3)—are each consistent with both an additive account (the sound adds a threat cue; the breeze adds a presence cue) and an interaction account (the sound changes visual perception). Without specifying what would count as a cross-sensory interaction versus an additive combination, the proposed research agenda in §4.1–4.3 cannot beeval
Section 4.1 proposes testing 'specific audio and visual components that match or do not match' to study how sounds or visuals can seem intimidating when inappropriately matched. However, the manuscript does not define what constitutes a 'match' or 'mismatch' between audio and visual components, nor does it specify how the resulting data would distinguish cross-sensory interaction from simple congruence effects already well-documented in multisensory perception literature. The position would be strengthened by engaging with existing cross-modal correspondence research (e.g., Spence, 2011) and specifying how the proposed VNE studies would go beyond established congruence paradigms.
The claim in Section 2 that 'certain results from the current literature may indicate that there are more complex, cross-sensory interactions occurring' is supported by only one concrete example (threatening rustling sounds). The manuscript would benefit from a more systematic survey of existing results that are anomalous under additive accounts, as this would establish the empirical motivation for the cross-sensory framework more convincingly. As stated, the motivation rests on a single illustrative case.

minor comments (4)

Section 4.2: The distinction between 'scents of things in nature' (e.g., burning a candle with eucalyptus oil) and 'scents of present natural items' (e.g., soil samples) is introduced but its relevance to cross-sensory interactions is not explained. Clarifying why this distinction matters for the proposed research would help.
Section 4.3: The anecdotal observation about air vents is attributed to 'past studies conducted by our research group' citing [20], but the manuscript does not describe the study design or sample size, making it difficult to assess the weight of this evidence. A brief description would strengthen the point.
The term 'forest bathing' is introduced in Section 1 without its Japanese origin (shinrin-yoku), which is standard context in this literature.
Reference [8] is cited as calling for multisensory research frameworks that approach cross-sensory interactions, but the manuscript does not describe what such a framework would look like or how the proposed research avenues in Section 4 would constitute one.

Circularity Check

0 steps flagged · score 0.0 of 10

No circularity: position paper with no derivations or fitted parameters

full rationale

This is a position paper that proposes a research agenda for cross-sensory interactions in VR nature environments. There are no mathematical derivations, fitted parameters, or quantitative predictions that could be circular by construction. The paper's central claim — that cross-sensory interactions are underexplored and differ from additive sensory effects — is a qualitative argument supported by literature citations and anecdotal observations (e.g., rustling sounds feeling threatening, air vent breeze enhancing visuals). While the paper does cite prior work by the authors (refs [19], [20], [21]), these citations serve motivational purposes: [20] provides an anecdotal observation about air vents that motivates the wind/temperature research avenue in §4.3, and [19] and [21] provide context for the authors' prior work on VNE design. None of these self-citations are load-bearing in the sense of providing a mathematical theorem, uniqueness result, or fitted parameter that the present paper's argument reduces to. The paper's argument structure is: (1) current literature treats senses as additive, (2) some observations suggest more complex interactions, (3) therefore cross-sensory interactions should be studied. This is a straightforward inductive argument from observation, not a circular derivation. The absence of operational definitions for 'additive' vs. 'cross-sensory' is a conceptual clarity concern (correctness/falsifiability risk), not a circularity concern. No step in the paper's reasoning chain reduces to its own inputs by construction.

Assumptions & free parameters 0 free parameters · 3 assumptions · 0 invented entities

The paper introduces no free parameters, no new entities, and no mathematical derivations. It relies on domain assumptions from environmental psychology and HCI literature.

assumptions (3)

domain assumption Cross-sensory interactions in VNEs are qualitatively different from additive sensory effects.
Section 3 and Abstract: The central premise that senses interact in complex ways beyond addition is asserted but not empirically demonstrated within the paper.
domain assumption Stress Recovery Theory and Attention Restoration Theory apply to virtual nature environments.
Section 1: The paper assumes theories developed for real nature environments transfer to VR simulations, citing refs [26] and [12].
domain assumption Increased presence in VNEs increases stress reduction potential.
Section 1: 'incorporation of multiple senses into VNEs increases presence which can increase stress reduction potential [11].' This chain is assumed, not demonstrated in the paper.

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Cite this review

Pith. "Pith review of New Cross-Sensory Approach to Designing Restorative Virtual Environments." pith.science (2026). https://pith.science/paper/XKCDY2SC

@misc{pith2026260706901,
  author       = {Pith},
  title        = {Pith review of: New Cross-Sensory Approach to Designing Restorative Virtual Environments},
  year         = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://pith.science/paper/XKCDY2SC}},
  note         = {Machine review of arXiv:2607.06901}
}

read the original abstract

Virtual reality (VR) nature immersion is an increasingly popular field of research due to its potential to help people who do not have access to real nature. There are many questions surrounding how virtual forests can be designed to effectively reduce stress and restore attention. Many of these questions relate solely to visual aspects, but more recent literature has started exploring multisensory experiences. In these experiences, senses are treated as additive; however, certain results from the current literature may indicate that there are more complex, cross-sensory interactions occurring. For example, adding sound to visuals can increase stress reduction potential, but certain natural sounds can feel threatening if they are out of place within the virtual nature scene. Overall, cross-sensory interactions in VR nature environments (VNEs) are underexplored and challenge our current understanding of multisensory VNEs, and future explorations of these interactions are essential for designing optimal VNEs for stress reduction.

Discussion (0). Continue with ORCID to comment.

Reference graph

Works this paper leans on

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Pith tools

Reviewed July 9, 2026 · model on record in the stance chip above.

[1] [8]

Yuqing Du, Anastasia Globa, and Arianna Brambilla. 2026. Towards holistic multisensory fully immersive virtual reality prototypes in architectural design: An analytical hierarchy process-based systematic review.Architectural Engineering and Design Management22, 1 (2026), 269–293

work page 2026

[2] [15]

Marilia KS Lopes and Tiago H Falk. 2024. Audio-visual-olfactory immersive digital nature exposure for stress and anxiety reduction: a systematic review on systems, outcomes, and challenges.Frontiers in Virtual Reality5 (2024), 1252539

work page 2024

[3] [19]

Rachel Masters, Victoria Interrante, Madeline Watts, and Francisco Ortega. 2022. Virtual Nature: Investigating The Effect of Biomass on Immersive Virtual Reality Forest Bathing Applications For Stress Reduction. InACM Symposium on Applied Perception 2022(TBC, USA)(SAP ’22). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 6, 10 pages. https...

work page doi:10.1145/3548814.3551459 2022

[4] [20]

Rachel Masters, Jalynn Nicoly, Vidya Gaddy, Victoria Interrante, and Francisco Ortega. 2024. The impact of nature realism on the restorative quality of virtual reality forest bathing.ACM Transactions on Applied Perception22, 1 (2024), 1–18

work page 2024

[5] [21]

Rachel Masters, Francisco Ortega, and Victoria Interrante. 2023. A Multisensory Approach to Virtual Reality Stress Reduction. arXiv:2309.00718 [cs.HC] https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.00718

work page Pith review arXiv 2023

[6] [1]

Francesco Aletta, Bert De Coensel, and PerMagnus Lindborg. 2021. Human perception of environmental sounds. , 714591 pages

work page 2021

[7] [2]

1975.The Experience of Landscape

Jay Appleton. 1975.The Experience of Landscape. Wiley, London

work page 1975

[8] [3]

Leonie Ascone, Fariba Mostajeran, Anna Mascherek, Nour Tawil, Thiemo Knaust, Larissa Samaan, and Simone Kühn. 2025. Multi-vs. unimodal forest-bathing in VR to enhance affective and cognitive recovery after acute stress.Journal of Environmental Psychology105 (2025), 102637

work page 2025