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. 2021 Jul 7:12:619347.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.619347. eCollection 2021.

Brief and Indirect Exposure to Natural Environment Restores the Directed Attention for the Task

Tsukasa Kimura  1 , Tatsuya Yamada  2 , Yohko Hirokawa  3 , Kazumitsu Shinohara  3
Affiliations

Brief and Indirect Exposure to Natural Environment Restores the Directed Attention for the Task

Tsukasa Kimura et al. Front Psychol. .

Abstract

The mental fatigue elicited by working and studying consumed mental resources, thereby eliciting a declined performance and an increased mental stress. The long-term continuous work and study, which is typical for modern workers and students, can increase mental fatigue and health risks. Previous studies reported that the natural environment (i.e., forest and waterside) has a restorative of mental resources (i.e., attention) and reducing stress. However, it is difficult for urban workers and students to take sufficient breaks in real natural environment. We conducted an experiment to examine whether brief and indirect exposure to the natural environment elicits a restorative of attention and reducing stress. Twenty-five undergraduate and graduate students from the university of modern city participated in the experiment. The experiment involved measuring the changes in the task performance of the participants (i.e., sustained attention to response task) and the subjective mental workload (i.e., arousal, valence, and NASA-TLX), while the attention restoration was indexed from physiological response (i.e., skin conductance level, SCL) over time. The participants had two types of resting periods in the middle of the task, i.e., by looking at a blank display (simple break) or by watching a nature video having scenes of, e.g., a forest, small waterfall, and rustling leaves (nature break). The results indicate that the natural environment indirectly depicted through the nature videos does not affect the task performance and the subjective mental workload but decreases the SCL. The results of the physiological response suggest that having rest periods depicting the natural environment, even if indirectly and briefly, can restore the directed attention (i.e., mental resources) for the task. This experiment revealed a useful method of resting for urban workers and students to restore their attention to a task.

Keywords: SCL; attention restoration; directed attention; natural environment; restorative environment.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Experimental procedure. (A) Rest session; (B,D,G) subjective rating sessions; (C,F) pre-recovery SART and post-recovery SART sessions; and (E) recovery session.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Mean RTs (ms) for SART and standard errors of RTs, regarding pre-recovery and post-recovery sessions in both conditions.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Mean hit rate (%) for SART and standard errors of RTs, regarding pre-recovery and post-recovery sessions in both conditions.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Subjective ratings and standard errors for each simple and nature break conditions.
Figure 5
Figure 5
ΔSCL and standard error of ΔSCL for each simple and nature break conditions.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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