Natural Is Not Always Better: The Varied Effects of a Natural Environment and Exercise on Affect and Cognition

Frontiers in Psychology

article

Janet P. Trammell¹  Shaya C. Aguilar¹ 

[1] Social Science Department, Seaver College, Pepperdine University, United States

关键词: Attention Restoration Theory;    affect (emotion;    mood;    personality);    attention;    cognition;    natural environment;    exercise;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2020.575245

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

The Attention Restoration Theory (ART) has been widely cited to account for beneficial effects of natural environments on affect and attention. However, the effects of environment and exercise are not consistent. In a within-subjects design, participants completed affective and cognitive measures that varied in attentional demands (memory, working memory, and executive function) both before and after exercise in a natural and indoor environment. Contrary to the hypotheses, a natural environment resulted in lower positive affect and no difference in negative affect compared to an indoor environment. A natural environment resulted in the most improvement for cognitive tasks that required moderate attentional demand: Trail Making Test A and Digit Span Forwards. As predicted, exercise resulted in improved affect and improved executive function (Trail Making Test B). There were no interactions between environment and exercise. These results suggest that ART cannot fully explain the influence of environment on affect and cognition.

【 授权许可】

CC BY