Author(s): Molly Leadbetter , Lacy Wood , Kari Krueger

Presentation: poster

This study is based on the ART (Attention Restoration Theory) which states being in nature or viewing nature stimuli has a restorative affect on directed attention. The theory postulates that nature captivates attention in a bottom-up fashion so top-down control can rest. Whereas urban areas are more stressful because of dangers such as buses and cars, so there is not a chance for top-down attention to be restored. A number of studies have shown that looking at nature pictures does appear to have a restorative affect on attention and looking at urban pictures does not. However, an alternate explanation exists, in studying the pictures used in these studies we noticed a systematic difference; the colors used in the two types of pictures (the blues and greens of the nature vs. the grays and dulled colors of the urban pictures.) We hypothesized that it may be the color of the pictures and not the content of the pictures that had the restorative affect. After replicating one of the original studies using their stimuli, we took the pictures and put them in grayscale to assess whether the colors of the pictures were a confounding variable.

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