Exposure to natural environments consistently improves visuospatial working memory performance

Abstract

Exposure to natural environments has shown to have a positive influence on executive mental functioning. In the present study, we investigated whether these nature-related cognitive benefits can extend to visuospatial working memory (WM), a cognitive function relatively underexplored on this topic. Participants performed a Change Localization task in three different experiments. On each trial, a sample array containing four colored shapes was briefly presented (100 ms) and followed, after a short delay (900 ms), by a similar test array that changed the color of one of the items, which participants had to identify. They completed this visuospatial WM task before and after exposure to images of either natural landscapes or urban settings, with both types being presented across two different sessions. Participants’ WM performance systematically improved because of exposure to natural, but not to urban images, even when the aesthetic preference for natural and urban stimuli was controlled for.