Amanda Snow, Utah State University
Psychology
Past studies investigating attention have found that exposure to natural scenes have a restorative effect on attention in adults, allowing for the occurrence of effortless, involuntary attention. This is in contrast to exposure to urban scenes which do not show the same restorative effect on attention (Berto et al., 2005, 2008). The present study investigates the potentially restorative effects on childhood attention of exposure to natural scenes. In this study, 58 children ages 4 to 11 participated in a task which was attentionally taxing. Next, they were instructed to attend to pictures belonging to one of three conditions: “high fascination” (natural scenes), “low fascination” (urban scenes), or a control group (geometric shapes). Finally, the participants performed the initial attentionally taxing task once again. While accuracy remained constant across conditions, children demonstrated a greater decreased reaction time when exposed to high fascination natural scenes as opposed to low fascination urban scenes or the geometric shapes of the control group. Between the pre and post tests, mean differences of 37.7 milliseconds for the natural condition, 24.4 milliseconds for the urban condition, and 22.7 milliseconds for the control group was found. This suggests that exposure to high fascination natural scenes has a restorative effect on attention in children as it does in adults. This finding is important because it provides a mechanism by which the attentional capacities of children may be improved.