ABSTRACT
People have cultivated plants and other natural elements in urban environments virtually since the advent of the earliest human cities. Recent research in the social sciences suggests that passive interactions with large scale natural environments may have health benefits. These early findings with large scale natural environments are consistent with enduring beliefs about the beneficial effects of natural environments, which in turn echo beliefs about the positive effects of horticultural pursuits. This paper describes two general classes of research methods that have been used to investigate the potential health effects of passive exposures to natural environments, methods that have direct applicability to the investigation of similar issues in horticultural environments. The first set of methods have been used in the field of environmental aesthetics to measure perceived environmental quality. Several of these specific methods are described and their applicability to horticultural research is highlighted. The second set of methods are taken from the field of psychophysiology, and have direct relevance for the study of potential health effects of environmental exposures. The emphasis in this section is on the issues involved in drawing inferences about psychological states from the measurement of physiological events.
