Superior Visual Search Accuracy after Exposure to Natural Relative to Urban Environments

Abstract

Recent studies have demonstrated a performance benefit when interacting in natural compared to urban environments. Presently, we are interested in testing whether visual search performance would differ depending on environmental exposure. We exposed participants to images of either natural scenes or urban scenes and asked them to complete a visual conjunction search (identifying the letter O embedded in an array of Q’s). Consistent with existing literature, findings revealed that participants were more accurate at identifying targets when they were exposed to images of nature relative to participants exposed to images of urban environments.