A fascinating measure of restoration: using eye-tracking to assess effortless attention during controlled and field-based exposure to outdoor environments

According to Attention Restoration Theory (ART; R. Kaplan & S. Kaplan, 1989), environments that capture attention effortlessly, whilst allowing for reflection, provide opportunity to restore fatigued attentional capacities. This visual-attentional process (soft-fascination) has been recorded via fixation and saccade behaviour while viewing nature photographs. However, this has largely compared fascinating nature to unappealing urban environments, lacked restoration measures, focused on laboratory-based exposure, and neglected individual characteristics. The present thesis aimed to overcome previous shortcomings and investigated the usefulness of eye-tracking as a measure of effortless attention during direct and indirect exposure to natural and built environments. In Study 1, 50 participants rated a sample of 400 photographs of natural, built, and mixed environments on soft-fascination. The natural and built photographs rated highest and lowest in soft-fascination were selected. Study 2 investigated the extent to which individual characteristics predicted ratings of soft-fascination in Study 1 and informed the use of control measures in subsequent experiments. Study 3 measured eye-movements of 64 participants while viewing one of four photograph sets (natural/built, high/low-fascination). Attentional capacity and mood were measured before and after 10-minutes of photograph exposure. Study 4 collected soft-fascination ratings across six natural and six built locations from 60 participants. Natural and built locations rated highest and lowest in soft-fascination were selected. Study 5 study followed the same procedure for collecting visual and restoration measures as Study 3, directly exposing 39 participants to high-fascination and low-fascination natural/built environments. Using an independent sample of 83 participants, Study 6 confirmed that fascination manipulations in Study 5 were successful. Findings confirm the effectiveness of using eye-tracking to measure effortless attention during both indirect and direct exposure to outdoor environments. Fixation frequencies and behaviours are particularly capable of distinguishing between attention towards natural and built environments and are found to significantly relate to attentional capacity during direct exposure to natural and built environments. Findings further demonstrate that natural and built environments can be equally attentionally restorative, particularly when considering highly fascinating built environments. Implications for future ART research are considered.