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The Psychological Benefits of Interacting with Nature
There is increasing scientific evidence that interacting with nature improves cognition and boosts feelings of emotional well-being. However, as more of the world is being developed, people's exposure to nature is being threatened... There is increasing scientific evidence that interacting with nature improves cognition and boosts feelings of emotional well-being. However, as more of the world is being developed, people's exposure to nature is being threatened. With that comes potentially harmful effects on human cognition and mental health. The Attention Restoration Theory suggests that nature is beneficial because it captures bottom-up attention moderately - enough to be interesting and not boring - giving the attention system a chance to restore itself, improving cognition and mood. However, the existing research has not clearly defined how or why nature captures attention moderately. Theories of aesthetic pleasure begin to answer this question by introducing the idea of disfluency reduction. The process of disfluency reduction leads to an aesthetic experience. Too much or too little disfluency or complexity within a scene results in feelings of confusion or boredom, respectively. Here, I aim to investigate the psychological mechanisms that account for the cognitive and emotional benefits of interacting with nature by integrating the attention restoration research with the aesthetic pleasure research. Specific objectives are: (1) assessing the behavioural and neural outcomes of immersion in nature using virtual reality combined with eye tracking and electroencephalography (EEG); (2) assessing the outcomes of isolation from nature using deep convolutional neural networks and machine learning; and (3) assessing the visual features that account for the above outcomes. Through understanding the psychological mechanisms underlying the benefits of nature exposure, we will be able to fully harness nature’s benefits and to forecast the negative impacts that further urbanization and indoor confinement may have on well-being. We can then use this knowledge to incorporate the important elements of nature in the design of new urban and indoor spaces, in order to minimize the negative impacts. ver más
31/03/2023
178K€
Duración del proyecto: 24 meses Fecha Inicio: 2021-03-05
Fecha Fin: 2023-03-31

Línea de financiación: concedida

El organismo H2020 notifico la concesión del proyecto el día 2023-03-31
Línea de financiación objetivo El proyecto se financió a través de la siguiente ayuda:
Presupuesto El presupuesto total del proyecto asciende a 178K€
Líder del proyecto
KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT LEUVEN No se ha especificado una descripción o un objeto social para esta compañía.
Perfil tecnológico TRL 4-5