The effects of viewing a winter forest landscape with the ground and trees covered in snow on the psychological relaxation of young Finnish adults: A pilot study

Ernest Bielinis; Emilia Janeczko; Norimasa Takayama; Anna Zawadzka; Alicja Słupska; Sławomir Piętka; Maija Lipponen; Lidia Bielinis

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0244799

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionMarch 20, 2020
14 Jul 2020 Decision Letter - Marco Innamorati, Editor PONE-D-20-06816 The Effects of Viewing Winter Forest Landscape With Ground and Trees Covered By Snow on the Psychological Relaxation of Young Finnish Adults PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Bielinis, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please submit your revised manuscript by Aug 28 2020 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript: A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'. An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. 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If you are unable to obtain consent from the subject of the photograph, you will need to remove the figure and any other textual identifying information or case descriptions for this individual. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: Partly ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 5. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: Thank you for the opportunity to review the manuscript titled: “The Effects of Viewing Winter Forest Landscape With Ground and Trees Covered By Snow on the Psychological Relaxation of Young Finnish Adults”. The manuscript under review deals with the relationships between contact with nature and psychological wellbeing outcomes, such as emotion, restorativeness and subjective vitality. The topic of the manuscript would seem to be relevant and deserves attention. Nevertheless, I think a major revision of the manuscript is needed. I strongly recommend to test such relationships through a second study collecting a bigger sample and including non-student participants. The current sample is very small and includes only student participants. It is a fine pilot study. In a second study, an a priori statistical power analysis should be carried out before the collecting data. Participants gender needs to be balanced between experimental and control groups. In the current manuscript, it is not clear the composition of each group concerning the gender variable. A second study involving non-student participants would need to take into account socio-demographic variables and such variables have to be balanced for each group. Even though the study has been carried out in Finland a measure of confidence with snowy environments (e.g., pleasantness of snowy environments, skilled skier) should be assessed in order to control such a variable as a covariate. Authors mention such an aspect, in the discussion section, when referring to Finland winter and this variable could address this issue. In the discussion more can be done to provide suggestions concerning applied interventions as well as future researches. Minor comments: The current version of the manuscript needs to be edited because there are some typos. For example, p.12 row 250, in the following statement: “with the Condition as … and Time” a word is missing. There are other typos which need to be edited throughout the manuscript. Authors should replace “males” and “females” with “women” and “men”. Even though females and males have been widely used in the past, women and men are more suitable terms for current academic writing because it takes out gendered stereotypes. Reviewer #2: Authors highlight an interesting approach. Notwithstanding this aspect, the paper shows several limitations. Firstly, to investigate the role of snow in positive effect on psychological aspects such as relaxation they should complete the experiment by introducing another condition about a landscape without snow. Secondly, the paper miss several bibliographic references (i.e., there are numerous phrases missing of reference). The major concern is about the lack of power due to the small sample size ****** 6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review?** For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: No [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0244799.r001
Revision 1
15 Sep 2020 Author Response Response to Editors’s: Ad. 1. Done Ad 2. Additional details were added. Ad. 3. Data have private information about participants and cannot be spread online. Ad. 4. Done Ad. 5. Done Ad. 6. Done Ad. 7. We shaded faces and elements responsible for recognition in participants on the photographs, so as we think, now this photograph can be officially publish. Review Comments to the Author � Reviewer #1: Thank you for the opportunity to review the manuscript titled: “The Effects of Viewing Winter Forest Landscape With Ground and Trees Covered By Snow on the Psychological Relaxation of Young Finnish Adults”. The manuscript under review deals with the relationships between contact with nature and psychological wellbeing outcomes, such as emotion, restorativeness and subjective vitality. The topic of the manuscript would seem to be relevant and deserves attention. Thank you to reviewer # 1 for this comment. We are grateful that Reviewer # 1 appreciated our work and our topic selection. � Nevertheless, I think a major revision of the manuscript is needed. I strongly recommend to test such relationships through a second study collecting a bigger sample and including non-student participants. The current sample is very small and includes only student participants. It is a fine pilot study Thank you to reviewer # 1 for this comment. The presented studies are the result of preliminary studies conducted in Finland in winter. These are, of course, a pilot study, and to underline this we decided to add the statement "pilot study" in the title of this manuscript. Since this is a preliminary study, there are some limitations that we take into account, so we have added a "limitations" section to this manuscript. It would be difficult to carry out additional research in the near future, due to the time of the year, which will be in a few months (winter) and the constraints related to the pandemic, and the topic is important and in our opinion, the latest report on the impact of snow on the respondents deserves publication. So if the reviewer kindly allows, we will highlight in this manuscript the fact that this is a pilot study (by adding the statement "pilot study" in the title) and refer to the individual improvements proposed by the reviewer, these references will be included in the "limitations" chapter. In our opinion, thanks to this solution, it will be possible to publish the manuscript with these results, but it will be known to the reader what the limitations of the research are. We believe that this will be a compromise between the requirements of Reviewer # 1 and our team's ability to conduct another study at this point. In the "limitations" chapter we added: In order to improve the statistical power, it is proposed to perform further studies in which a larger number of respondents and also non-students will participate. In this study, the number of participants was relatively small, but the power of the test was statistically acceptable. � In a second study, an a priori statistical power analysis should be carried out before the collecting data. Thank you to reviewer # 1 for this comment. In the "limitations" chapter we added: In subsequent studies, it is proposed to perform a power analysis of the experiment before collecting data, to obtain information about how large a group of subjects will be sufficient. � Participants gender needs to be balanced between experimental and control groups. In the current manuscript, it is not clear the composition of each group concerning the gender variable. Thank you to reviewer # 1 for this comment. In the chapter "materials and methods" we added: The gender of the study participants should be balanced between the experimental group and the control group. In this crossover study, the general female and male groups were the same in the control group and the experimental group overall. � A second study involving non-student participants would need to take into account socio-demographic variables and such variables have to be balanced for each group. Thank you to reviewer # 1 for this comment. In the "limitations" chapter we added: In future studies involving non-student participants, the socio-demographic variables should be considered and balanced for each group. � Even though the study has been carried out in Finland a measure of confidence with snowy environments (e.g., pleasantness of snowy environments, skilled skier) should be assessed in order to control such a variable as a covariate. Authors mention such an aspect, in the discussion section, when referring to Finland winter and this variable could address this issue. Thank you to reviewer # 1 for this comment. In the "limitations" chapter we added: In future studies, the assessment of the contact and attitude of the subjects towards the snow environment should also be measured, for example, the level of pleasure induced by snow in the subjects and the experience of sports in the snow may be variables and covariates in this study. � In the discussion more can be done to provide suggestions concerning applied interventions as well as future researches. Thank you to reviewer # 1 for this comment. In the "limitations" chapter we added: In the current study, a pilot study was carried out on the impact of the snow environment on the subjects. The approach here planned was to expose the subjects to 15 minutes of stimulation. However, this is only one type of activity that can be considered, true outdoor recreation often lasts longer and provides a variety of stimuli, and in future research these natural activities should be considered as experimental and tested stimulation. It can be imagined that in future studies the experimental group would participate in a two-hour walk in the snow in the forest, or be involved in sports activities in this environment. As a result, a more natural form of activity could be tested in a forest environment with snow cover. � Minor comments: The current version of the manuscript needs to be edited because there are some typos. For example, p.12 row 250, in the following statement: “with the Condition as … and Time” a word is missing. There are other typos which need to be edited throughout the manuscript. Authors should replace “males” and “females” with “women” and “men”. Even though females and males have been widely used in the past, women and men are more suitable terms for current academic writing because it takes out gendered stereotypes. Thanks to reviewer # 1 for these comments. We included these minor changes to the manuscript. � Reviewer #2: Authors highlight an interesting approach. Thank you to reviewer # 2 for this comment. We are grateful that Reviewer # 1 appreciated our work and our topic selection. � Notwithstanding this aspect, the paper shows several limitations. Firstly, to investigate the role of snow in positive effect on psychological aspects such as relaxation they should complete the experiment by introducing another condition about a landscape without snow. Thank you to reviewer # 2 for this comment. As this is a pilot study, the number of options has been reduced as much as possible, we will include this approach in future studies. If the reviewer allows, we will present this approach as a limitation of our research, while proposing future research. At the same time, we would like to draw attention to the fact that in many studies the type of experiment was presented as control + experimental variant, then the influence of forest areas during the growing season on the participants of the experiment was examined, and in this type of research there were no additional variants or additional control. We adopted a similar course of action in our experiment. We have added the following in the "limitations" section: Another limitation of this work is the use of research in the winter season, but a good reference point would be to perform additional experiments in the growing season. Such an experimental setup will be implemented in future research. We were interested in the winter aspect, mainly because this period in quite a large part of Phenoscandia lasts extremely long, and the long periods of snow cover are inextricably linked with this region of Europe. Hence, the results of the research may have very important implementations for the inhabitants of Finland � Secondly, the paper miss several bibliographic references (i.e., there are numerous phrases missing of reference). Thank you to reviewer # 2 for this comment. After careful verification of the text, we added the missing literature items. � The major concern is about the lack of power due to the small sample size. Thank you to reviewer # 2 for this comment. This is obviously a limitation of this research. We have added the following in the "limitations" section: The main limitation of these studies is the low power of the experiment resulting from the small number of subjects (22 people), but to control this fact, we calculated the power of the experiment in this study and it is statistically acceptable. In other studies (including Takayma et al.), The number of participants was 12-15, which was sufficient to draw meaningful conclusions. Research of this type is characterized by its specificity, which means that they are not conducted in large samples, additionally, coefficients are used to ensure repeatability of the results, i.e. Cronbach's alpha. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0244799.r002
2 Nov 2020 Decision Letter - Marco Innamorati, Editor PONE-D-20-06816R1 The Effects of Viewing a Winter Forest Landscape with the Ground and Trees Covered in Snow on the Psychological Relaxation of Young Finnish Adults: A Pilot Study PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Bielinis, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please submit your revised manuscript by Dec 17 2020 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript: A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'. An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Marco Innamorati Academic Editor PLOS ONE [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation. Reviewer #1: (No Response) Reviewer #2: (No Response) ******** 2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: (No Response) Reviewer #2: Partly ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: (No Response) Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: (No Response) Reviewer #2: No ****** 5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: (No Response) Reviewer #2: No ****** 6. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: In the current version of the manuscript, Authors recognize several limitations of the research and they use a more cautious title. Nevertheless, there is a statements that should be dampened. The statement, "In other studies [56,57] the number of participants was 12-15, which was sufficient to draw meaningful conclusions" should be reworded in the following way: "In other studies [56,57] the number of participants was 12-15, which HAS BEEN CONSIDERED sufficient to draw PRELIMINARY conclusions." Previous underpowered studies are not a justification to carry out future studies underpowered. Even though the manuscript report limitations, Authors recognize such limitations in the discussion section and provide some suggestions for future studies. Moreover, the topic is somewhat original and might stimulate future research. Thus, in my view, the manuscript could be accepted as a pilot study after this round of minor revision by which Authors dampen the statement above reported. Reviewer #2: Part of my concerns have been adressed by authors. Unfortunately, there are important issues that continue to be present in the paper like uncorrect use of some terms and not clear statements that have to be corrected or clarified. In general, the study should be described with greater methodological rigor. Examples are: -in my opinion, the term "stimulation" used to describe experimental conditions should be substituted with "exposition" - you define the sample as "healthy" but this statement is not supported with any test (line 128) - if groups are equal in composition and experimental conditions they received, why did you define two groups as experimental and control (e.g., line 138)? In statistical analyses section you use a within design. You should clarify this aspect - In lines 73-74, bibliographic references are necessary. It is a crucial point of the paper because you operatively define the "psychological relaxation effect". - in both buildings and forest conditions subjects could stay stayed or sat. Given the importance of these two condition on "psychological relaxation effect", this aspect should to be controlled. -"sample size of 0.25" should be corrected with "effect size of 0.25" (line 143) -lines 136-138 are not clear - you should clarify if the climate features (e.g., temperature) are the same in "forest" and "building" conditions. Indeed, the snow was a prominent feature of forest condition, but you didn't report the state of snow in building condition. -lines 349-354 are not clear, you should explain better these concepts and support them with bibliografic references -in line 371 what do you mean with "rough control"? -lines 480-481 should be clarified ****** 7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review?** For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: No [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0244799.r003
Revision 2
10 Nov 2020 Author Response Reviewer #1: We thank the reviewer for these comments, we hope our responses to these comments are sufficient, and appreciate the reviewer's contribution to improving the quality of this work. In the current version of the manuscript, Authors recognize several limitations of the research and they use a more cautious title. Nevertheless, there is a statements that should be dampened. The statement, "In other studies [56,57] the number of participants was 12-15, which was sufficient to draw meaningful conclusions" should be reworded in the following way: "In other studies [56,57] the number of participants was 12-15, which HAS BEEN CONSIDERED sufficient to draw PRELIMINARY conclusions." Previous underpowered studies are not a justification to carry out future studies underpowered. Thanks to reviewer # 1 for this comment, of course we made some corrections. Even though the manuscript report limitations, Authors recognize such limitations in the discussion section and provide some suggestions for future studies. Moreover, the topic is somewhat original and might stimulate future research. Thus, in my view, the manuscript could be accepted as a pilot study after this round of minor revision by which Authors dampen the statement above reported. Thank you to the reviewer for appreciating this topic and our corrections. Reviewer #2: Part of my concerns have been adressed by authors. Unfortunately, there are important issues that continue to be present in the paper like uncorrect use of some terms and not clear statements that have to be corrected or clarified. In general, the study should be described with greater methodological rigor. We thank the reviewer for these comments, we hope our responses to these comments are sufficient, and appreciate the reviewer's contribution to improving the quality of this work. Examples are: -in my opinion, the term "stimulation" used to describe experimental conditions should be substituted with "exposition" Thank you for this comment, we've made some corrections. - you define the sample as "healthy" but this statement is not supported with any test (line 128) Thank you for this comment, we have removed this adjective. - if groups are equal in composition and experimental conditions they received, why did you define two groups as experimental and control (e.g., line 138)? In statistical analyses section you use a within design. You should clarify this aspect We thank the reviewer for this comment. Of course we meant group A and group B. It was a crossover study (control and experimental groups were exchanging, so this is the same as group A and group B). We have supplemented this in the text. - In lines 73-74, bibliographic references are necessary. It is a crucial point of the paper because you operatively define the "psychological relaxation effect". We thank the reviewer for this comment. We have added needed literature here. - in both buildings and forest conditions subjects could stay stayed or sat. Given the importance of these two condition on "psychological relaxation effect", this aspect should to be controlled. We thank the reviewer for this comment. Unfortunately, we have not controlled this effect, so we consider it a research limitation (if the reviewer kindly allows). We added an explanation: “Another limitation of the research was the differentiation of the way of psychological relaxation - the subjects could rest while sitting or standing and look at the forest. However, this variable, ie sitting or standing, was not controlled in the experiment.” \\ -"sample size of 0.25" should be corrected with "effect size of 0.25" (line 143) We thank the reviewer for this comment. Yes, we have corrected it. -lines 136-138 are not clear We thank the reviewer for this comment. We clarified it, it was about groups A and B ( which are interchangeably control and corossover study group). - you should clarify if the climate features (e.g., temperature) are the same in "forest" and "building" conditions. Indeed, the snow was a prominent feature of forest condition, but you didn't report the state of snow in building condition. We thank the reviewer for this comment. We have added the following text: „The snow cover layer was similar in both experimental sites (in the forest and in front of the buildings). The climatic conditions were similar in both experimental sites, because there was no strong wind on that day, the differences were not felt by the respondents (oral report).” and in limitations: “Another limitation may be the fact that the climatic conditions of the environment were not accurately measured in each experimental site (in the forest and in front of buildings). Both of these limitations will be considered and eliminated in the next experiment.” -lines 349-354 are not clear, you should explain better these concepts and support them with bibliografic references Thank you to recent for this comment. We have added the following comment: “This means that we believe that, under certain circumstances, snow can suppress the feeling of vigor as it blocks the stimulating effect of green in the forest and the view of trees. This stimulating effect has been proven in other studies” -in line 371 what do you mean with "rough control"? Thank you to recent for this comment. We've added the following text, and used this statement in quotation marks. “(control in an experiment in the city, related to, inter alia, car traffic).” -lines 480-481 should be clarified Thank you to recent for this comment. We dropped that sentence - it was deleted. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Review PLOS ONE 09.11.2020.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0244799.r004
11 Dec 2020 Decision Letter - Marco Innamorati, Editor PONE-D-20-06816R2 The Effects of Viewing a Winter Forest Landscape with the Ground and Trees Covered in Snow on the Psychological Relaxation of Young Finnish Adults: A Pilot Study PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Bielinis, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please submit your revised manuscript by Jan 25 2021 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript: A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'. An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Marco Innamorati Academic Editor PLOS ONE [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation. Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed Reviewer #3: (No Response) ******** 2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Partly Reviewer #3: Partly ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes Reviewer #3: Yes ****** 4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: (No Response) Reviewer #2: Yes Reviewer #3: Yes ****** 5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: No Reviewer #3: Yes ****** 6. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: (No Response) Reviewer #2: Comments and concerns have been adressed. Limitations have been properly highlighted. I suggest to authors a further English check. Reviewer #3: - It has been already said that the experimental subjects were randomly assigned to the two groups (line 133), there is no need to repeat it in line 179 - In lines 359-36: "the other strong hypothesis is that the snow covered environment might influence them not only by visual stimulation but also through a reduction in the concentration of volatiles in the air". This aspect is not directly measured, so it may be more appropriate to re-evaluate the term "strong hypothesis" used in the paper ****** 7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review?** For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: No Reviewer #3: No [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0244799.r005
Revision 3
15 Dec 2020 Author Response Response to reviewers: Reviewer #1: (No Response) Reply: We thank the reviewer for this comment. Reviewer #2: Comments and concerns have been addressed. Limitations have been properly highlighted. I suggest to authors a further English check. Reply: We would like to thank the reviewer for this comment, we have made language corrections as a result of an additional language check two times by qualified proofreader and also proofreading services. Reviewer #3: - It has been already said that the experimental subjects were randomly assigned to the two groups (line 133), there is no need to repeat it in line 179 Reply: We thank the reviewer for this comment, we have removed the repetitive fragment of the text. - In lines 359-36: "the other strong hypothesis is that the snow covered environment might influence them not only by visual stimulation but also through a reduction in the concentration of volatiles in the air". This aspect is not directly measured, so it may be more appropriate to re-evaluate the term "strong hypothesis" used in the paper Reply: We thank the reviewer for this comment, we reevaluated the meaning of this sequence, removed the word "strong". Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0244799.r006
17 Dec 2020 Decision Letter - Marco Innamorati, Editor The Effects of Viewing a Winter Forest Landscape with the Ground and Trees Covered in Snow on the Psychological Relaxation of Young Finnish Adults: A Pilot Study PONE-D-20-06816R3 Dear Dr. Bielinis, We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Marco Innamorati Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation. Reviewer #3: All comments have been addressed ******** 2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #3: Yes ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #3: Yes ****** 4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #3: Yes ****** 5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #3: Yes ****** 6. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #3: Comments and concerns have been addressed. Repetitive fragment on the text has been removed. The re-evaluation of the meaning of the sequence: "the other strong hypothesis is that the snow covered environment might influence them not only by visual stimulation but also through a reduction in the concentration of volatiles in the air" has been completed ****** 7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review?** For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #3: No https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0244799.r007
Formally Accepted
21 Dec 2020 Acceptance Letter - Marco Innamorati, Editor PONE-D-20-06816R3 The Effects of Viewing a Winter Forest Landscape with the Ground and Trees Covered in Snow on the Psychological Relaxation of Young Finnish Adults: A Pilot Study Dear Dr. Bielinis: I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. Marco Innamorati Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0244799.r008

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PLOS recognizes the benefits of transparency in the peer review process. Therefore, we enable the publication of all of the content of peer review and author responses alongside final, published articles. Reviewers remain anonymous, unless they choose to reveal their names.

We encourage other journals to join us in this initiative. We hope that our action inspires the community, including researchers, research funders, and research institutions, to recognize the benefits of published peer review reports for all parts of the research system.

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