Immersion in nature enhances neural indices of executive attention

Strayer, David L. · 2024 · Scientific Reports

DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-52205-1

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Summary

This study investigates the neural mechanisms underlying the cognitive benefits of nature exposure, addressing a gap in Attention Restoration Theory (ART). While ART posits that natural environments replenish depleted directed attention, prior research has relied heavily on self-report and behavioral measures, leaving the specific neural processes unclear. The authors aimed to determine which aspects of attention—alerting, orienting, or executive control—are enhanced by immersion in nature and to identify the corresponding neurophysiological markers. The researchers conducted a randomized controlled trial with 92 healthy adults. To simulate the cognitive depletion described in ART, participants first completed a 10-minute counting-backwards task. They then performed the Attention Network Task (ANT) while undergoing electroencephalography (EEG) recording to capture both behavioral performance and event-related potentials. Participants were randomly assigned to take a 40-minute walk in either a natural arboretum or a comparable urban environment. The study design included strict controls for distance, elevation, and environmental conditions, and participants walked alone without electronic devices to maximize immersion. Following the walk, participants repeated the ANT and completed the Perceived Restorativeness Scale. The results indicated that participants in the nature condition reported their walk as significantly more restorative than those in the urban condition. Behaviorally, the study found no significant differences in alerting or orienting metrics between groups. However, the nature group showed enhanced executive control capacity at the neural level. Specifically, the nature walkers exhibited an enhanced error-related negativity (ERN) after their walk, an event-related potential component that indexes executive control. The urban group did not show this neural enhancement. These findings suggest that the attentional benefits of nature are specific to executive control rather than being a domain-general effect across all attention networks. The significance of this work lies in providing the first direct neural evidence for the mechanisms of attention restoration. By linking the behavioral concept of directed attention to the neural metric of executive control (via the ERN), the study validates a core tenet of Attention Restoration Theory. It demonstrates that a brief immersion in nature can specifically replenish the neural resources required for conflict resolution and cognitive control, offering a potential biological explanation for why natural environments mitigate the mental fatigue associated with modern urban living.

Key finding

A 40-minute walk in nature enhances the error-related negativity, a neural index of executive control, compared to a walk in an urban environment.

Methodology

lab_experiment

Sample size: 92

Provenance

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Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-10; verification: verified.

Topics

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• executive function