Does walking in nature restore directed attention?
Aims: Mental fatigue is commonly understood and experienced as mental exhaustion, irritability and foggy thinking. Research indicates mental fatigue is indicative of depleted directed attention resources. Thus, restoration of directed attention is thought to alleviate mental fatigue. This research s...
| Format: | Article |
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| Language: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2015-09-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Psychology |
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| Online Access: | http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/conf.fpsyg.2015.66.00018/full |
| _version_ | 1818127277574062080 |
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| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Aims: Mental fatigue is commonly understood and experienced as mental exhaustion, irritability and foggy thinking. Research indicates mental fatigue is indicative of depleted directed attention resources. Thus, restoration of directed attention is thought to alleviate mental fatigue. This research sought to determine if walking in nature compared to walking on a treadmill provided enhanced performance on tasks of directed attention.
Method: Twenty-two participants completed a 30-min walk on a treadmill and a walk in the local Botanic Garden on separate days. Two directed attention tasks (Rapid Visual Information Processing (RVIP) and Necker Cube reversal task) were conducted both before and after each walk as well as a Perceived Arousal Scale and a Positive and Negative Affect Schedule.
Results: Total hits and sensitivity to a target on a RVIP task improved significantly in both locations F(1, 20) = 11.892, p = .003, F(1, 20) = 12.364, p = .002 respectively. However, there was no significant difference between the nature walk and the treadmill walk. Significant order effects were found for sensitivity to targets pre/post walks, F(1, 19) = 10.309, p = .005 and F(1, 19) = 8.578, p = .009 respectively. Necker cube baseline scores indicated a significant reduction in reversals after 30 minutes of walking in both locations. Arousal was higher overall in the nature walk compared to the treadmill walk, F(1, 20) = 11.626, p = .003.
Conclusions: No evidence was obtained to suggest that walking in nature leads to improved directed attention compared to walking on a treadmill. Results indicate that improvements were due to significant learning affects. The significantly higher overall score on the arousal scale in the natural environment suggests that participants were more alert in this environment. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-11T07:14:48Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-56de9cc390954be593b4aa2e8069388f |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1664-1078 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-11T07:14:48Z |
| publishDate | 2015-09-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Psychology |
| spelling | doaj.art-56de9cc390954be593b4aa2e8069388f2022-12-22T01:16:16ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Psychology1664-10782015-09-01610.3389/conf.fpsyg.2015.66.00018169905Does walking in nature restore directed attention?Aims: Mental fatigue is commonly understood and experienced as mental exhaustion, irritability and foggy thinking. Research indicates mental fatigue is indicative of depleted directed attention resources. Thus, restoration of directed attention is thought to alleviate mental fatigue. This research sought to determine if walking in nature compared to walking on a treadmill provided enhanced performance on tasks of directed attention. Method: Twenty-two participants completed a 30-min walk on a treadmill and a walk in the local Botanic Garden on separate days. Two directed attention tasks (Rapid Visual Information Processing (RVIP) and Necker Cube reversal task) were conducted both before and after each walk as well as a Perceived Arousal Scale and a Positive and Negative Affect Schedule. Results: Total hits and sensitivity to a target on a RVIP task improved significantly in both locations F(1, 20) = 11.892, p = .003, F(1, 20) = 12.364, p = .002 respectively. However, there was no significant difference between the nature walk and the treadmill walk. Significant order effects were found for sensitivity to targets pre/post walks, F(1, 19) = 10.309, p = .005 and F(1, 19) = 8.578, p = .009 respectively. Necker cube baseline scores indicated a significant reduction in reversals after 30 minutes of walking in both locations. Arousal was higher overall in the nature walk compared to the treadmill walk, F(1, 20) = 11.626, p = .003. Conclusions: No evidence was obtained to suggest that walking in nature leads to improved directed attention compared to walking on a treadmill. Results indicate that improvements were due to significant learning affects. The significantly higher overall score on the arousal scale in the natural environment suggests that participants were more alert in this environment.http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/conf.fpsyg.2015.66.00018/fullMental Fatiguenaturedirected attentionAttention Restoration Theory |
| spellingShingle | Does walking in nature restore directed attention? Frontiers in Psychology Mental Fatigue nature directed attention Attention Restoration Theory |
| title | Does walking in nature restore directed attention? |
| title_full | Does walking in nature restore directed attention? |
| title_fullStr | Does walking in nature restore directed attention? |
| title_full_unstemmed | Does walking in nature restore directed attention? |
| title_short | Does walking in nature restore directed attention? |
| title_sort | does walking in nature restore directed attention |
| topic | Mental Fatigue nature directed attention Attention Restoration Theory |
| url | http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/conf.fpsyg.2015.66.00018/full |