The United Nations estimates that by the year 2050 roughly 70% of the world's population will be living in highly urbanized areas. This increase in urban living comes with many benefits: sustainable spaces for living, increased flow of ideas and innovation, better proximity to services, and diverse communities. Unfortunately, urban life as it stands is also associated with increased stress, worse physical and mental health, and shorter life expectancy. All of these negative effects alter our physiology, brain, and behavior. By understanding the psychological, neural, and physiological mechanisms underlying the relationship between exposure to nature and cognitive performance, future studies will be able to more easily implement interventions aimed at improving built spaces in order to enhance the potential for human productivity and vitality. This research is guided by Attention Restoration Theory, which posits that incorporating natural elements into the built environment can counteract some of the negatives of urban life. Results from this proposal could be used to help design schools, offices, homes, cities and towns to optimize human functioning.
Philosophers, writers, and lay people have had the intuition for centuries that interacting with nature has myriad benefits to human functioning. While this intuition is appealing, it needs rigorous testing. This project aims to identify the mechanisms through which interactions with natural environments might enhance both behavior and brain function, using cutting edge neuroscience, psychophysiological and machine-learning tools. The primary objectives of this research project are the following. First the research will examine the psychological, physiological, and neural processes that are altered during interactions with natural environments. It will address questions such as how hard must the brain work when processing more natural vs. more urban stimuli, and how does this processing affect people's ability to focus. Second, the research will determine some of the characteristics (e.g., low-level visual features such as color, edge content, fractalness, etc.) of natural and urban environments that lead to psychological improvements or decrements. This information will aid understanding of some of the visual features that may be producing these benefits, which could then be used to help design new built spaces or retrofit existing built spaces. Third, the research will test whether individuals who are in more mentally fatigued states will benefit more from natural vs. urban environment exposure. This aspect of the work will help to define the neural and psychophysiological basis of mental fatigue. In summary, this research project aims to understand how interactions with different environments affect human functioning, and what interventions can be made to improve human functioning at large scales.
