Abstract
The benefits of visual exposure to natural environments for human well-being in areas of stress reduction, mood improvement, and attention restoration are well documented, but the effects of natural environments on impulsive decision-making remain unknown. Impulsive decision-making in delay discounting offers generality, predictive validity, and insight into decision-making related to unhealthy behaviors. The present experiment evaluated differences in such decision-making in humans experiencing visual exposure to one of the following conditions: natural (e.g., mountains), built (e.g., buildings), or control (e.g., triangles) using a delay discounting task that required participants to choose between immediate and delayed hypothetical monetary outcomes. Participants viewed the images before and during the delay discounting task. Participants were less impulsive in the condition providing visual exposure to natural scenes compared to built and geometric scenes. Results suggest that exposure to natural environments results in decreased impulsive decision-making relative to built environments.
Highlights
The natural world has long been the subject of human enjoyment and fascination [1,2], and is often depicted in philosophical writings as healing and rejuvenating [3]
As well as slowed time-perception, decrease impulsive decisionmaking in delay discounting. Considering these effects of viewing natural scenes on mood, attention, and time-perception–and the influence that these same cognitive processes exert on degree of delay discounting–we predicted that viewing scenes of nature would result in decreased impulsive decision-making in a delay discounting task relative to viewing scenes of built environments or geometric shapes
The current study suggests that exposure to natural environments can decrease impulsive decision-making in humans
Summary
The natural world has long been the subject of human enjoyment and fascination [1,2], and is often depicted in philosophical writings as healing and rejuvenating [3]. This same financial management training was associated with decreased impulsive decision-making in real world situations unrelated to money [42] For these reasons, generating general techniques to reduce impulsive decisionmaking in a delay discounting task may be a useful avenue for future research, and is the focus of the present experiment. As well as slowed time-perception, decrease impulsive decisionmaking in delay discounting Considering these effects of viewing natural scenes on mood, attention, and time-perception–and the influence that these same cognitive processes exert on degree of delay discounting–we predicted that viewing scenes of nature would result in decreased impulsive decision-making in a delay discounting task relative to viewing scenes of built environments or geometric shapes
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