Effects of the COVID-19 lockdowns on aesthetic and affective evaluations of natural and urban scenes

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent UK lockdowns restricted mobility, altered access to the outdoors and led to changes in the environment (e.g., reduced traffic, pollution and crowding). This is likely to have altered the way people evaluated outdoor environments. Here we investigated aesthetic and emotional responses (liking, openness, relaxation) to paintings and photographs depicting landscapes and urban scenes in three UK cohorts: pre-lockdown, spring 2020 lockdown, and winter 2021 lockdown. Participants (N = 334) reported higher levels of liking, openness and relaxation for landscapes and urban scenes during the two lockdown periods compared to pre-lockdown levels. Importantly, evaluations in the lockdown groups were influenced by the types of places visited most frequently. These findings aid our understanding of the psychological effects of lockdowns on evaluations of outdoor environments and are relevant to the development of policies for the promotion of well-being, including the design of more open and relaxing urban spaces.