College of Social and Behavioral Sciences
113 Influence of Nature on Effortful Processing of Emotionally Charged Stimuli
Astra Storie and Amy McDonnell
Faculty Mentor: Amy S. McDonnell (Psychology, University of Utah)
Abstract
Immersion in natural environments is thought to have a restful and restorative effect on individuals living in urban areas. Attention Restoration Theory (ART) suggests that depletion of attentional resources strained by life in urban environments is a primary driver of the restorative benefits of nature, and is substantiated by a body of evidence showing the benefits of nature on cognitive processes related to attention. This study sought to examine if immersion in nature benefits two aspects of attention– cognitive control and emotional inhibition–as assessed by a Classic Stroop Task and Emotional Stroop Task, respectively. Participants (N=27) completed self-report measures and both cognitive tasks once in an urban environment, and once in a natural environment during a five-day camping trip. We predicted that performance on the Classic Stroop Task and on the Emotional Stroop Task would improve in nature compared to the urban control environment. Contrary to our hypotheses, linear mixed models did not show a significant impact of environment type on performance on either task. We did, however, find that self-reported connectedness to nature increased in natural environments. These results suggest no effect of immersion in nature on behavioral indices of cognitive control or emotional inhibition, but did show that immersion in nature enhances perceived connectedness to nature.
Introduction
Urbanization has rapidly increased since the industrial revolution of the 19th century, resulting in 56% of the global population living in urban environments (The World Bank, 2023). Epidemiological research has found that populations living in urban environments experience greater rates of mental illness (Golembiewski, 2021) and decreased attentional capacity (Linnell et al., 2012; Lambert et al., 2015). Although the restorative properties of natural environments have been known since antiquity, it has only been in the last several decades that these effects have been tested with the scientific method by the psychological science community. This research has resulted in a growing body of research in support of the restorative properties of nature on cognition and mood.
One framework that explains how these benefits may precipitate from interacting with nature is Attention Restoration Theory (ART; Kaplan, 1995). ART suggests that the over- stimulation and attentional demands of urban environments place high demand on our voluntary, directed attention. We are forced to move from one task to the next and we are unable to fully replenish our cognitive resources before this effortful form of attention is next required. Over time, this constant task-switching leads to mental fatigue, reduction in our voluntary attention capacity, degraded cogn