The Impact of Nature Imagery and Mystery on Attention Restoration

Trina Yap, Denise Dillon () and Peter K. H. Chew
Additional contact information
Trina Yap: College of Healthcare Sciences, James Cook University, Townsville 4811, Australia
Denise Dillon: School of Social & Health Sciences, JCU Singapore, Singapore 387380, Singapore
Peter K. H. Chew: School of Social & Health Sciences, JCU Singapore, Singapore 387380, Singapore

J, 2022, vol. 5, issue 4, 1-22

Abstract: The factors contributing to urbanization, such as population growth and the development of mega-cities, have increased environmental stressors on top of everyday stressors, resulting in information overload. This has led to the increasing incidence of direct attentional fatigue, which causes stress and mental fatigue. The attention restoration theory centres on the environment’s capacity to restore attentional deficits and suggests that there are certain qualities in the environment that restore attention, which leads to improvements in our physical, mental, and social well-being. An environment can be restorative through the activation of involuntary attention, which limits the need for directed attention. This study explored for effects of natural, built, and mixed environment types and levels of mystery on attention restoration in university undergraduates. Perceived and actual levels of attention restoration were measured using a perceived restoration scale (PRS) and the digit symbol substitution task (DSST), respectively. A total of 101 participants viewed a restorative image followed by the completion of the DSST and the PRS for each of the 18 images depicting different environments. Actual attention restoration was measured by latency values in the DSST instead of through both speed and error rates due to some operational issues with the DSST which interfered with the full achievement of the study’s aims. There was an effect of different environments and mystery on perceived attention restoration. However, there appeared to be no effect on actual attention restoration, indicating a disconnect between perceived and actual restoration. Further research is required to confirm the specific effects of natural and built environments and mystery on attention restoration.

Keywords: attention restoration; environment settings; mystery (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I1 I10 I12 I13 I14 I18 I19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2571-8800/5/4/33/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2571-8800/5/4/33/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jjopen:v:5:y:2022:i:4:p:33-499:d:966972

Access Statistics for this article

J is currently edited by Ms. Angelia Su

More articles in J from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().