Observing Live Fish Improves Perceptions of Mood, Relaxation and Anxiety, But Does Not Consistently Alter Heart Rate or Heart Rate Variability

Nancy R. Gee, Taylor Reed, April Whiting, Erika Friedmann, Donna Snellgrove and Katherine A. Sloman
Additional contact information
Nancy R. Gee: Department of Psychology, State University of New York, Fredonia, NY 14063, USA
Taylor Reed: Department of Psychology, State University of New York, Fredonia, NY 14063, USA
April Whiting: Department of Psychology, State University of New York, Fredonia, NY 14063, USA
Erika Friedmann: School of Nursing, University of Maryland, Baltimore, MD 21201, USA
Donna Snellgrove: WALTHAM Centre for Pet Nutrition, Leicestershire LE14 4RT, UK
Katherine A. Sloman: Institute of Biomedical and Environmental Health Research, School of Health and Life Sciences, University of the West of Scotland, Paisley PA1 2BE, UK

IJERPH, 2019, vol. 16, issue 17, 1-15

Abstract: Although fish and other aquatic species are popular privately-kept pets, little is known about the effects of watching live fish on the perceptions of arousal and the link between those perceptions and physiological measures of arousal. In two separate experiments, participants were asked to watch identically-equipped fish tanks for five minutes in each of three conditions: (1) Live fish, (2) plants and water, and (3) empty tank. Linear mixed models used across both experiments revealed similar results: Greater perceptions of relaxation and mood, and less anxiety during or after viewing the live fish condition, compared with the other conditions. Heart rate and heart rate variability responded to the arousal associated with a math task, but did not differ consistently across viewing conditions. These results suggest that the link between perceptions of arousal, and the physiological measures associated with arousal, may not be strong or immediate, or that heart rate and heart rate variability may not be appropriate measures for the test population. Implications of these results for the biophilia hypothesis and the biopsychosocial model are discussed.

Keywords: human-animal interactions; health benefits of companion animals; psychological benefits of aquarium fish (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/17/3113/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/17/3113/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:16:y:2019:i:17:p:3113-:d:261287

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().