Autonomic responses to natural, physical, and social features of neighborhood environments

Neighborhood characteristics such as nature, deterioration and disorder, and the presence of community members may elicit differential physiological responses that contribute to stress and health. We hypothesized that neighborhood socioeconomic status and one’s prior experience may influence how these aracteristics are interpreted and thus the responses they elicit. Adult participants were assigned to a novel, virtual-reality
experience of neighborhood disadvantage or affluence, with a constant community of human avatars, while physiological responses were monitored (n = 34 each condition). The percentage of the virtual scene composed of nature, deterioration / disorder, and human avatars was calculated for each minute. We examined if timevarying characteristics were associated with electrodermal and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) reactivity and whether effects were moderated by parental education as a measure of prior experience. Overall, there were no main effects of nature, deterioration/disorder, or avatars. Exposure to human avatars was associated with electrodermal reactivity, as moderated by neighborhood condition and parental education (3-way interaction: B = -3.08, p = .03). In particular, within the affluent neighborhood greater exposure to avatars was associated with greater reactivity for those with high parental education, while the opposite effect was observed for those with
lower parental education. For deterioration/disorder, there was a trend-level interaction with parental education for RSA (B = -1.18, p = .053), indicative of greater RSA suppression to eterioration/disorder for participants with lower parental education, and the opposite for those with higher parental education, potentially indicative of emotion regulation versus stress. These results suggest that while specific neighborhood characteristics may be associated with physiological responses, such effects are nuanced and dependent on neighborhood context and prior experience.