16 April 2022 | New Scientist | 45natural scenes effortlessly fascinating – they
can capture our attention without us having
to deliberately focus on them. According to
“attention restoration theory”, this can help
to recharge the mind when it is stressed.
Experiments in adults and children have
shown that environments that stimulate
unconscious attention allow parts of the
brain responsible for directed attention to
rest and recover from mental fatigue. “The
effects are similar to those of meditation,” says
John Spengler, a professor of environmental
health and human habitation at Harvard
University. As a result, we find scenes from
nature particularly restorative – and designs
that incorporate natural elements into homes
and offices should have knock-on benefits for
our physical and mental health.
Indeed, many studies now support that
idea. Hospital patients whose rooms overlook
natural settings tend to need lower doses of
painkillers, and leave hospital earlier, than
those whose windows look out over a brick
wall, for instance. Other research has found
that green views – in this case, of a flowering
rooftop meadow – seem to restore students’
ability to mentally focus, compared with
those looking out over a bare roof.
Faking it
We don’t all have the luxury of a lush vista,
of course. But evidence is building that a
naturalistic interior design can bring about
the same benefits, even if we live in a
concrete jungle.
Some of the most compelling comes from
Jie Yin at Tongji University in Shanghai, China,
who has used immersive virtual reality (VR)
environments to test the benefits of different
biophilic designs.
Spengler, Yin and their colleagues first
created four separate office designs. One was a
standard room without any natural elements.
The second had an outdoor view and shelves
with houseplants. The third had wallpaper
with foliage print and a sculpture taking the
form of a tree’s branches. The fourth was
similar to the third, with the addition of
several real plants dotted around.
They then asked participants to navigate
the VR rooms for about 10 minutes while
wearing monitors that measured their
cardiovascular activity. Compared with
the standard room, all the biophilic offices
reduced blood pressure. It didn’t seem to
make a big difference whether the contact
with nature came through a window or
whether it was part of the interior design. >