Abstract
Psychological and physiological effects of plants were studied by investigating human responses while observing plants. Eighteen healthy adult male(aged between $19{\sim}25$ years) participated in this study. Semantic differential method(SD method) and multi-channel near-infrared spectroscopy(NIRS) were used to survey verbal and non-verbal response, respectively. Cerebral hemodynamics as a new evaluation index of brain activity was recorded for right brain hemisphere where visual information is mainly delivered. Thirty seconds of cerebral blood flow in forty seven channels were calculated when watching five types of picture images with different rates of hedge against gray block wall; 0:10, 3:7, 5:5, 7:3, 10:0. In the SD results, similar evaluations were found in all subjects. However, the change of cerebral hemodynamics as a non-verbal response varied among subjects. Largely two patterns of hemodynamics change were found with increasing plants rate in picture images; group A showed significant decreases of blood flow volume in many cortical regions, Group B had significant increase of blood flow volume in the occipital region for the scenes seen comparatively more plant. Our findings on the cerebral hemodynamics may indicate that there are two patterns of brain activity during observation of plants; group A in which brain areas associated with visual information and thinking work simultaneously to the visual stimuli; group B in which brain areas associated only with visual information work.