2006 Volume 18 Issue 2 Pages 97-104
In the present research, psychological states of elderly people in the process of raising plants were analyzed by means of brain waves and semantic differential technique.
The experiment carried out from October 2004 to January 2005. Subjects were ten elderly individuals (mean age, 70.5 years) and ten young individuals (mean age, 21.0 years). Each subject raised three kinds of plants (Pachira glabra Pasq., Myrtillocactus geometrizans Console and Cyclamen persicum Mill. cvs.) for ten weeks in his or her house. At the zeroth, second, sixth and tenth week of the experiment, the subjects brought their plants to a laboratory at Ehime University. In the laboratory, the psychological states of the subjects in seeing their plants in front of them were evaluated by brain wave and semantic differential technique. The Cyclamen persicum Mill. cvs. of most subjects lost its flowers and leaves and declined in appearance at approximately the sixth week.
The ratio of alpha wave to beta wave calculated an index of the degree of calmness of psychological state. As for the elderly subjects, the differences of the ratios of alpha wave to beta wave between the evaluated plants became smaller according to the raising weeks. The influence of the deterioration of the Cyclamen persicum Mill. cvs. on the psychological states of the elderly subjects was not observed. The semantic differential data were almost the same the brain waves data. These results indicated that elderly people's psychological states became stable and calm in the process of raising plants.
