Feeling Stressed and Ugly? Leave the City and Visit Nature! An Experiment on Self- and Other-Perceived Stress and Attractiveness Levels
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
I have attached my comments in a word doc for suggestions etc, but just to note I really enjoyed reading this. I hope my comments help to improve the MS and that it's out in the world shortly!
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
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Reviewer 2 Report
Contact with nature is an important health resource. This article expands the understanding of these relationships by examining the facial expressions of people,
thus contributing to a deeper understanding of human-environment relations.
The article is written fluently and logically structured.
The article is very descriptive a theoretical underpinning is missing.
Why does contact to nature lead to a positive body image?
Several studies already focus on facial expressions of forest visitors and environmental factors:
e.g. We et al. 2019: Facial Expressions of Visitors in Forests along the Urbanization Gradient: What Can We Learn from Selfies on Social Networking Services?
these studies should be taken into account
Author Response
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Reviewer 3 Report
Excellent paper, very thorough introduction and background, well-designed and explained study methods, discussion and conclusions match the data.
Only suggestion is to possibly include a graph of the data (rather than just Table 1), to enhance the presentation and shareability of the data.
Author Response
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Reviewer 4 Report
This is an unique article of investigating whether walking in nature and relieving stress makes people's faces more attractive. But research methods need to be reviewed.
- There was little change in other-rated stress and attractiveness in nature. There has been no proper discussion of this point.
- The results of other-rated evaluations resulted in much higher stress and much less attractiveness than self-rated evaluations. Could this be due to the photo giving such a bad impression than the real face? Photographs only express a static expression, so author should consider whether it really represents a person's appeal. Using video or other facial expressions, or body movements, might be more reflective of this.
- It is recommended to plan the experiment that the number of steps and physical activity would be the same when walking in nature and in the urban.
- Author should make sure that whether the walkers applied cosmetics when taking the photos even they were men.
Author Response
We uploaded a word file with our responses.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 4 Report
The author responded politely to the reviewer and corrected the manuscript appropriately.
