LAUSR

A field experiment was conducted at a junior high school with 35 students to compare the influence of passive versus active interaction of occupants with indoor plants and the effect of distance from plants on the participants. The participants’ data on subjective perception and objective performance were collected every four weeks over a semester. The active interaction mode group (n = 18) was required to take care of the plants in the classroom and surrounding areas, while the passive interaction mode group (n = 17) was not. The results indicated that (1) the active interaction mode had significantly greater self-reported stress restoration than the passive interaction mode with acceptable statistical power; (2) self-reported plant knowledge seemed to increase over the semester with no definite trend; (3) both active and passive interaction with plants could significantly increase self-reported attention restoration with acceptable statistical power; and (4) the plants at different distances from participants’ seats did not have different effects on participants, though the statistical power of this finding was less than ideal.