Interactions between restorative environments and cognitive strategies Many of these studies report differential effects on a particular cognitive task, the backward digit span task, which is a popular measure in the literature on executive functioning. built environments (via walks, videos, and still photos). The primary support for this claim comes from many studies (Bodin and Hartig, 2003 Cimprich and Ronis, 2003 Stark, 2003 Berman et al., 2008, 2012 Perkins et al., 2011 Emfield and Neider, 2014 Gamble et al., 2014 Lin et al., 2014 Bratman et al., 2015 Rogerson and Barton, 2015 Gidlow et al., 2016 Li and Sullivan, 2016 Triguero-Mas et al., 2017) reporting a link between executive functioning and exposure to natural vs. Here we focus on whether the restorative effects of natural environments occur through a direct influence on the operations of central executive functioning, as originally claimed by Kaplan ( 1995) and reiterated by Kaplan and Berman ( 2010). Of particular interest to cognitive researchers are claims concerning the benefits to cognition (e.g., attention, working memory, executive functions) that can be delivered through the experience of nature.Īs in many fields of research, theoretical and mechanistic understanding of the main findings often lags behind the evidence for positive outcomes. A recent literature review summarizes many health effects of experiencing natural environments (Hartig et al., 2014), including that spending time in nature reduces stress (Hartig et al., 2014), reduces depressive symptoms (Berman et al., 2012), contributes to positive general health outcomes (Mitchell and Popham, 2008 Kardan et al., 2015), and increases work productivity and enjoyment (Raanaas et al., 2011). This connection is seen in the growing interest in maintaining gardens (Clatworthy et al., 2013), bringing plant life indoors (Bringslimark et al., 2009), and seeking time to enjoy green spaces (Kaplan and Kaplan, 1989). Some of the research is driven by concerns of rapid environmental change (Gifford, 2011), but other research focuses on the roots of people's interest in a closer connection to nature. The past decade has seen considerable interest in the relations between the natural environment and human cognition (Kaplan and Berman, 2010 Bratman et al., 2015 Dadvand et al., 2015 Kabisch et al., 2015). This suggests that brief exposure to nature had a direct positive influence on executive mental functioning. An interaction between environmental video exposure and cognitive strategy was found, in that effects of cognitive strategy on executive function were smaller in the nature video condition than in the urban video condition. The results showed that the nature video tour attenuated the influence of task instructions relative to the urban video tour. In Experiment 3, these two manipulations were combined to explore the relations between them. Experiment 2 used a pair of 10-min video tours (urban, nature) to examine the relationship between environmental exposure and executive mental function on the same tasks, replicating previous findings with the backward digit span task and extended them to a new task (i.e., Raven's progressive matrices). Experiment 1 manipulated participants' cognitive strategy through explicit instructions in order to establish a link between cognitive strategy and executive mental functioning. Each experiment used a pretest-posttest design and assessed executive mental functioning using a backward digit span task and Raven's progressive matrices. passive instructional approaches to the task). urban video tours) and strategic effects (active vs. Three experiments investigated links between environmental effects (nature vs. Here we manipulate both factors to help determine whether they draw on common cognitive resources. Exposure to natural environments and the adoption of specific cognitive strategies are each claimed to have a direct influence on executive mental functioning.
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