Forest 404: Using a BBC drama series to explore the impact of nature's changing soundscapes on human wellbeing and behavior.

Extensive ecosystem degradation and increasing urbanization are altering human relationships with nature. To explore these trends, we created a transdisciplinary, narrative-led podcast series produced by the BBC, called Forest 404. The series explored the implications of a world without nature. An online experimental component mobilized audience participation (n = 7,596) to assess responses to natural soundscapes with and without abiotic, biotic, and poetic elements across five biomes. Conditions featuring the sounds of wildlife, such as bird song, were perceived to be more psychologically restorative than those without. Participants' personal lived experiences were strongly related to these outcomes; those who had memories triggered by the sounds were more likely to find them psychologically restorative and exhibited a greater motivation to preserve them. Moreover, the effects of both soundscape composition and memories on preservation behavior were partially mediated by restorative potential; respondents were more likely to want to protect the sounds they heard if they thought they might offer therapeutic outcomes. Our findings highlight the value of art-science collaborations and demonstrate how maintaining contact with the natural world can promote wellbeing and foster behaviors that protect planetary health.

Designing citizen science tools for learning: lessons learnt from the iterative development of nQuire.

This paper reports on a 4-year research and development case study about the design of citizen science tools for inquiry learning. It details the process of iterative pedagogy-led design and evaluation of the nQuire toolkit, a set of web-based and mobile tools scaffolding the creation of online citizen science investigations. The design involved an expert review of inquiry learning and citizen science, combined with user experience studies involving more than 200 users. These have informed a concept that we have termed 'citizen inquiry', which engages members of the public alongside scientists in setting up, running, managing or contributing to citizen science projects with a main aim of learning about the scientific method through doing science by interaction with others. A design-based research (DBR) methodology was adopted for the iterative design and evaluation of citizen science tools. DBR was focused on the refinement of a central concept, 'citizen inquiry', by exploring how it can be instantiated in educational technologies and interventions. The empirical evaluation and iteration of technologies involved three design experiments with end users, user interviews, and insights from pedagogy and user experience experts. Evidence from the iterative development of nQuire led to the production of a set of interaction design principles that aim to guide the development of online, learning-centred, citizen science projects. Eight design guidelines are proposed: users as producers of knowledge, topics before tools, mobile affordances, scaffolds to the process of scientific inquiry, learning by doing as key message, being part of a community as key message, every visit brings a reward, and value users and their time.

Gameplay as a source of intrinsic motivation in a randomized controlled trial of auditory training for tinnitus.

BACKGROUND: Previous studies of frequency discrimination training (FDT) for tinnitus used repetitive task-based training programmes relying on extrinsic factors to motivate participation. Studies reported limited improvement in tinnitus symptoms. PURPOSE: To evaluate FDT exploiting intrinsic motivations by integrating training with computer-gameplay. METHODS: Sixty participants were randomly assigned to train on either a conventional task-based training, or one of two interactive game-based training platforms over six weeks. Outcomes included assessment of motivation, tinnitus handicap, and performance on tests of attention. RESULTS: Participants reported greater intrinsic motivation to train on the interactive game-based platforms, yet compliance of all three groups was similar (∼ 70%) and changes in self-reported tinnitus severity were not significant. There was no difference between groups in terms of change in tinnitus severity or performance on measures of attention. CONCLUSION: FDT can be integrated within an intrinsically motivating game. Whilst this may improve participant experience, in this instance it did not translate to additional compliance or therapeutic benefit. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02095262.