Climate-Crisis Landscapes in VR: Effects on Distance and Time Estimation

The Climate Crisis is reshaping not only ecosystems but also human cognition. While its psychological impact is increasingly acknowledged, little is known about how environmental degradation influences basic cognitive functions. Since spatial and temporal cognition provide the perceptual scaffolding for orientation and various decision-making processes, distortions in these dimensions may hinder adaptive responses to ecological change. This study examined whether simulated climate-related degradation affects spatial-temporal cognition and whether interoceptive awareness predicts variability in these effects. Using immersive Virtual Reality combined with an omnidirectional treadmill, participants walked along paths in verdant and arid landscapes and then estimated the duration and distance travelled on each path. The results showed that arid environments led to longer time and distance estimates than verdant ones, although there were no objective differences in path length or actual walking time. Furthermore, temporal judgements, but not spatial ones, were predicted by interoceptive attention regulation: participants with a higher capacity to regulate attention towards bodily sensations consistently provided shorter temporal estimates across all contexts. These findings demonstrate that spatial-temporal representations are sensitive to ecological quality and that interoceptive processes contribute to individual differences in temporal perception. This highlights the value of integrating cognitive processes and interoception into sustainability science, suggesting that environmental preservation supports not only ecological well-being but also the cognitive foundations through which humans perceive and adapt to their surroundings.