Trees are among the most studied subjects in the environmental psychology literature, and the findings are consistent. Time spent in the presence of trees, or viewing images of them, is associated with measurable reductions in stress, lower blood pressure, and restored directed attention. These effects are not incidental to the visual experience but appear to be built into the human response to arboreal environments, a remnant of the long relationship between our nervous systems and the landscapes we evolved within. These images were made within that relationship, in forests, along paths, and in the particular quality of light that moves through a canopy and arrives changed.
