Restorative environments' influence on cognitive flexibility in developing adults

Natural environments have been shown to have many psychological benefits for the human psyche. Among these benefits are mental stress reduction, positive emotional impacts, and attention restoration. Cognitive Flexibility is the ability to alternate perspectives due to changing situational demands. This ability is helpful in stopping habitual thought processes and behaviors. The purpose of this study was to explore restorative environments‘ impact on one‘s ability to be cognitively flexible. Sixty-three undergraduates at the University of Utah completed a pre- and postassessment of the Attention Network Test and viewed a 13-minute film of either urban or natural type environments between assessment points. Factorial ANOVA was utilized to explore between-group differences. Results show individuals in the urban condition had significantly faster response times when assessing congruent trials (where flexibility is not needed) than those in the natural condition. Though there was no evidence that natural environments quickened flexible responses, there is some indication that urban environments may perpetuate habitual ones.