The Differential Impact of Mystery in Nature on Attention: An Oculometric Study

Nature exposure can provide benefits on stress, health and cognitive performance. According to Attention Restoration Theory (ART), the positive impact of nature on cognition is mainly driven by fascination. Fascinating properties of nature such as water or a winding hiking trail may capture involuntary attention, allowing the directed form of attention to rest and to recover. This claim has been supported by studies relying on eye-tracking measures of attention deployment, comparing exposure to urban and nature settings. Yet, recent studies have shown that promoting higher engagement with a nature setting can improve restorative benefits, hence challenging ART’s view that voluntary attention is resting. Besides, recent evidence published by Szolosi et al. (2014) suggests that voluntary attention may be involved during exposure to high-mystery nature images which they showed as having greater potential for attention restoration. The current study explored how exposure to nature images of different scenic qualities in mystery (and restoration potential) could impact the engagement of attention. To do so, participants were shown nature images characterized by either low or high mystery properties (with allegedly low or high restoration potential, respectively) and were asked to evaluate their fascination and aesthetic levels. Concurrently, an eye tracker collected measures of pupil size, fixations and spontaneous blinks as indices of attentional engagement. Results showed that high-mystery nature images had higher engagement than low-mystery images as supported by the larger pupil dilations, the higher number of fixations and the reduced number of blinks and durations of fixations. Taken together, these results challenge ART’s view that directed attention is merely resting during exposure to restorative nature and offer new hypotheses on potential mechanisms underlying attention restoration.

Theories and concepts: linking landscapes and health.

This book chapter provides an introduction and background information for many of these theories, concluding with practical applications, focusing on evolutionary-based theories (e.g. biophilia hypothesis, naturalistic intelligence, other evolutionary-grounded theories), restorative environment theories (stress reduction theory, attention restoration theory), identity theories, and other psychological theories and concepts. The ideas presented in this chapter arise from different ways of thinking about or explaining this phenomenon, using a particular language and worldview. A strength of the research paradigm is that it enables scientists and researchers to communicate about this engrained bodily knowledge and integrate it into ongoing theory and practice in disciplines such as medicine, public health, planning, and education that impact our day-to-day lives. Slowly but surely, Western scientific research has begun to accept other worldviews and ideas, and this diversity of thought provides greater understanding of the world around us. Much of the research presented in the next chapter builds on the foundation of the theories presented here.

When the Nature of ‘Nature’ is Inconsistent: Evaluating the Natural Environment in Attention Restoration Theory

The Attention Restoration Theory (ART; Kaplan & Kaplan, 1989) postulates that exposure to nature can help improve cognitive processes, specifically attentional control. These benefits are hypothesized to help with concentration and focus. However, there is tremendous variability in the definitions and manipulations of nature in research on ART. This complicates extrapolation from the results and makes it harder to see if nature itself is the restorative component or rather some other facet. This review evaluates randomized controlled trials studying the ART from 2013-2018 and catalogues differences in how nature was operationalized across studies. The paper presents suggestions for more methodologically consistent ART research, including direct replications, and an updated scale for measuring the restorativeness of an environment. This preprint is an unpublished senior thesis.

Perceived Green at Speed: A Simulated Driving Experiment Raises New Questions for Attention Restoration Theory and Stress Reduction Theory

Few studies have investigated the impact of landscapes on humans’ mental status while they are moving at high speeds, such as driving on the freeway. This study used a simulation system to measure drivers’ mental responses to six different freeway landscapes. Each of the 33 participants completed six different 90-minute simulated driving tasks in a randomly assigned sequence. The six landscape conditions consisted of an identical freeway infrastructure, with different roadside landscapes. Results show significant differences between landscape conditions and drivers’ mental responses. Landscape conditions with greater greenness, in general, had a greater positive impact on drivers’ mental status. The barren and tree regular landscapes yielded the worst and best results, respectively. Further, higher complexity was associated with a higher level of negative mental status. We argue that the speed of human’s active movement should be considered as an essential factor in the Attention Restoration Theory and Stress Reduction Theory.

Closed-Loop Attention Restoration Theory for Virtual Reality-Based Attentional Engagement Enhancement

Today, as media and technology multitasking becomes pervasive, the majority of young people face a challenge regarding their attentional engagement (that is, how well their attention can be maintained). While various approaches to improve attentional engagement exist, it is difficult to produce an effect in younger people, due to the inadequate attraction of these approaches themselves. Here, we show that a single 30-min engagement with an attention restoration theory (ART)-inspired closed-loop software program (Virtual ART) delivered on a consumer-friendly virtual reality head-mounted display (VR-HMD) could lead to improvements in both general attention level and the depth of engagement in young university students. These improvements were associated with positive changes in both behavioral (response time and response time variability) and key electroencephalography (EEG)-based neural metrics (frontal midline theta inter-trial coherence and parietal event-related potential P3b). All the results were based on the comparison of the standard Virtual ART tasks (control group, n = 15) and closed-loop Virtual ART tasks (treatment group, n = 15). This study provides the first case of EEG evidence of a VR-HMD-based closed-loop ART intervention generating enhanced attentional engagement.