Page - 151 - in Biodiversity and Health in the Face of Climate Change

151 Table 7.2 Summary of the six frameworks offering perspective on biodiversity and mental well- being relationships with descriptions of how biodiversity and mental well-being are conceptualised, and the mediating pathways that could explain biodiversity-health relationships Framework Description Biodiversity conceptualisation Mental well-being conceptualisation Mediating pathways Preference Matrix Preferences for environments are based on information the environment provides Four information qualities in a landscape are: complexity; coherence; legibility; and mystery. Biodiversity is implicitly considered as a measure of an environment’s complexity, which refers to the ‘richness’ of a visual scene Preference, or liking, for a specific environment or landscape Informational needs of understanding and exploration Fractal Geometry Shapes, processes or systems that contain repeating patterns that are reduced-size copies of the whole Natural phenomena, such as coastlines, rivers, trees, leaves and snowflakes, are fractal. Fractals have been used to determine biodiversity of an environment Preference for, or liking, a specific visual landscape Perceptual fluency  – the ease with which a specific visual stimulus is perceptually processed. Fractals contain redundant information, due to their self- similar repeating patterns, which could contribute to the experience of easy perceptual processing by the brain Biophilia Hypothesis Humans have an innate, emotional connection to life and life-like processes, which motivates contact with animals, plants and natural landscapes Posits that biodiversity and certain landscapes engender optimal human functioning. Does not specify which species or landscape types are best for Biophilia. Preference for animals, plants or environments Learning theory (continued) 7 Theoretical Foundations of  Biodiversity and  Mental Well-being Relationships