The Cognitive Benefits of Interacting With Nature

2008/12/01 by Marc G. Berman, John Jonides, Stephen Kaplan · 2,507 citations
Environmental Science · Neuroscience · Psychology · #Urban Green Space and Health #Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies #Psychological and Temporal Perspectives Research #Psychology #Task (project management) #Cognition #Cognitive psychology #Natural (archaeology) #Selective attention #Mind-wandering #Neuroscience

paper · doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02225.x

published in Psychological Science 19(12), 1207-1212 (SAGE Publishing)

openalex publication_date 2008/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

We compare the restorative effects on cognitive functioning of interactions with natural versus urban environments. Attention restoration theory (ART) provides an analysis of the kinds of environments that lead to improvements in directed-attention abilities. Nature, which is filled with intriguing stimuli, modestly grabs attention in a bottom-up fashion, allowing top-down directed-attention abilities a chance to replenish. Unlike natural environments, urban environments are filled with stimulation that captures attention dramatically and additionally requires directed attention (e.g., to avoid being hit by a car), making them less restorative. We present two experiments that show that walking in nature or viewing pictures of nature can improve directed-attention abilities as measured with a backwards digit-span task and the Attention Network Task, thus validating attention restoration theory.

Citations

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