DSF - Natural Feelings (Original Mix)
A wonderful sampler of David Elias's DSD work compiling curated tracks from his various full albums and EP's. Get introduced to the authentic and natural sounds of acoustic music performed in a studio and captured with its analog feel in a digital format that is permanent and 100% consistent in sound quality forever. As Gus Skinas (original Sony SACD Project, SuperAudioCenter.com) said long ago "It sounds like analog tape only better."
DSF - Natural Feelings (Original Mix)
"I am now on my second listen [Crossing] and the sound quality is glorious. Your voice sounds close miked? Your voice also sounds similar to Chris Rea's. My wife also mentioned this! It is a wonderful album, chilled and mostly laid back, and your voice, guitars and percussion all sound very natural with classy musicianship." - Jonathan, UK
A GREAT CD!author: Dick Metcalf, aka Rotcod ZzajA new recording format (DSD), which the liners say is "the highest resolution media available anywhere today", is featured on this great little CD in from David! I was first introduced to David's wonderful acoustic guitar & vocals over at MIXPOSURE (www.mixposure.com ), by Guy Michetti (who is a fantastic player in his own right). Elias' music takes me back nearly 30 years, to an era where the singers were able to reach right out & touch your soul with their lyrics (think James Taylor, maybe). David's voice is a natural for this kind of music, & his lyric-writing skills are top-o'-th'-line. There's a tinge of country & a flash of John Denver, but I'd say his singing & lyrical style reminds me (more) of one of my all-time favorite singers, Bruce Cockburn. Simple messages wrapped in intelligent & meaningful words. If you like this type of music, I'd suggest you keep your ear on Mr. Elias... he's got fame & glory coming soon. Be sure you're there to enjoy it with him... I will be, for sure! This CD gets a MOST HIGHLY RECOMMENDED from my ears! Learn more about David & his music at www.davidelias.com or purchase the CD at
The trademark minimal microphone approach taken by Elias in his previous SACDs was repeated here with microphones for each instrument and vocal. In addition microphones in the ceiling and back walls were, as with "The Window" and "Crossing" used to capture the natural reverberation and ambient characteristics of the recording space. Only these tracks were used in the Pure DSD mix on the Sonoma workstation, avoiding all compression and outboard or digital effects. There are no overdubs or edits in these mixes.
Different kinds of benefits perceived by caregivers have been reported in the literature, but those perceived by caregivers of stroke survivors have been less studied. An integrative review22 indicated that the benefits perceived by caregivers of patients with dementia included four domains, namely, a sense of personal accomplishment and gratification, feelings of mutuality in a dyadic relationship, and increases in family cohesion and functionality. An examination of the caregiving benefits perceived by the caregivers of patients with cancer suggested that they accepted that things could not be controlled, learnt effective skills to cope with stress, and found meaning in their own distress.23 Similarly, the caregivers of stroke survivors in Australia reported that they came to have better relationships with others and appreciated life more,14 those in the USA developed a positive attitude towards the disease24 and those in the UK strengthened their sense of meaning and received compliments from care recipients.25
Another outcome of interaction with nature is its positive effect on cognitive ability and functions19,20. Cognitive functions refer to several mental abilities such as learning, problem-solving, memory, and attention21. Directed or voluntary attention describes the ability to focus on a task that requires effort19. However, this cognitive resource or ability is not infinite and may become fatigued22. For instance, one can experience attention fatigue while focusing on a task with little or no intrinsically motivational draw when simultaneously having to suppress more interesting input23,24. A suggested remedy is to take a break from the task and spend time in natural environments22. Attention restoration theory (ART)6,23 is one theory that provides an explanation for this effect. It proposes that nature, which is full of intriguing stimuli, grabs attention in a bottom-up fashion allowing for top-down directed-attention abilities to be restored. Several studies have validated this theory by showing improvements in the performance of cognitive tasks, in particular, in tests assessing executive functioning such as Trail Making Test and Digit Span Tests, after exposure to nature22,25.
Similar positive effects have been observed for illustrations or simulations of nature as well26,27. These span from simple photographs to fully immersive virtual reality (VR) environments. For instance, Berman et al.20 found that cognitive performance was improved after viewing photographs of natural scenes. Simulations of natural environments are in particular beneficial for situations when access to real nature is limited. Older adults in nursing homes, hospital patients, and prison inmates are exemplary individuals with limited access to nature. However, COVID-19 pandemic forced more individuals globally, especially in urbanized environments, into prolonged lockdowns and likewise restricted their access to natural environments. Recent studies have shown that these reduced interaction with nature, especially green spaces such as parks, were linked to fears about the virus and were associated with higher levels of emotional distress28,29.
Comparisons between immersive VR and real nature exposures have revealed that VR can induce similar positive effects as real nature44,45,46,47,48. For example, Browning et al.44 compared exposure to a real forest and a \(360^\circ \) video of the same environment and observed that both were more restorative in comparison to a physical indoor environment without nature. In addition, the sense of presence was not reported to be significantly different between \(360^\circ \) videos and real nature (a lake) environment49. In fact, participants (N = 100) of a study conducted by Mattila et al.50 viewed computer-generated nature (a forest) in VR as restorative as the real natural environments, and yet, more fascinating and coherent.
Positive physiological and affective outcomes of exposure to immersive VR nature have been studied in previous research51. For instance, Wang et al.52 demonstrated that exposure to \(360^\circ \) videos of different types of forest environments can improve mood and relieve stress. Recovery from stress as a result of exposure to virtual nature has been also demonstrated by Annerstedt et al.53, who showed that recovery is enhanced when the environment is presented together with natural sounds. Similar effects were observed in other studies which demonstrate that visual stimuli of virtual nature are more effective for stress reduction when accompanied by auditory stimuli (e.g., bird songs)36,54.
However, research on the effects of exposure to immersive virtual nature on cognition is relatively scarce51. There are only a few studies, which have included cognitive measures as an outcome variable of exposure to virtual nature. In one of them, presented by Chung et al.61, brain activity was recorded using electroencephalography (with the goal to capture involuntary attention restoration) while participants performed an auditory oddball task. Their results showed that in comparison to \(360^\circ \) videos of fireworks, exposure to \(360^\circ \) videos of natural environments (seaside, grassland, and hilly scenes) improved cognitive functioning and restored involuntary attention. In another study, Valtchanov et al.62 administered mental-arithmetic quizzes (i.e., five multiplication and five division questions), but could not observe significant differences in math performance before and after exposure to an immersive computer-generated virtual forest environment. Nevertheless, increased positive affect and decreased stress could be observed. A possible reason for the lack of cognitive improvement could be the level of difficulty of the chosen tasks, as they might have been too easy to detect any subtle changes in performance.
We hypothesized that exposure to virtual nature would result in shorter completion times in TMT. The results of TMTB and its difference to TMTA support our hypothesis. This is consistent with the literature, in which performance in TMTB has shown improvements86. However, the non-significant difference in TMTA does not confirm our hypothesis. Nonetheless, this result is consistent with the previous literature, in which no significant improvement could be measured in the TMTA after exposure to nature87,88. As mentioned earlier, TMTA requires visuomotor abilities and processing speed whilst TMTB demands additional set-shifting skills. Thus, TMTB is cognitively more demanding which could be a reason for measurable effects after exposure to real or virtual natural environments. Likewise, it could be possible that the effect of nature on the TMTA is generally too small to be measured. Moreover, TMTB-A measures pure executive functioning by removing the visuomotor component. Thus, our results show that exposure to virtual nature is also able to improve pure higher-level cognitive functions assessed by TMTB-A.
Perceived stress also showed significant reduction after exposure to virtual nature compared to the control condition. This finding validates the stress reduction theory (SRT, by Ulrich et al16). According to this theory, stress can be reduced by an encounter with unthreatening natural environments. As humans subconsciously prefer such environments, their sympathetic stress responses are reduced as a result of exposure. Our results showed that exposure to an immersive computer-generated virtual nature has similar effects and results in less perceived stress compared to a neutral control condition. This is inline with previous work on exposure to real-life \(360^\circ \) videos of nature36,52,53,54. 041b061a72