Attention restoration: why calm scenes can feel refreshing
Attention restoration theory says nature rests a tired mind. What the evidence supports, why pictures are not parks, and what a calm game can borrow.
After a long stretch of concentrated work, a walk in a park can feel like taking a heavy bag off your shoulder. A busy street at rush hour does not. Environmental psychologists have spent decades trying to explain that difference, and the best-known explanation, attention restoration theory, has shaped everything from hospital gardens to office design. It is often stretched far beyond its evidence, too, including by people who make calm-looking apps and games. Here is what it says, what the studies support, and what it does and does not mean for a screen.
Stephen Kaplan’s 1995 paper set out the framework. It distinguishes directed attention, the effortful kind you use to keep reading a dense report while a conversation goes on nearby, from involuntary attention, which is captured without effort by things that are simply interesting. Directed attention depends on actively suppressing distractions, and Kaplan argued that it becomes fatigued with heavy use, leaving people more irritable, more error-prone and less able to plan.
Recovery, on this view, needs a setting that lets directed attention rest. Kaplan described four qualities of a restorative environment. It offers a sense of being away from the usual demands. It has extent, a feeling of a coherent world rich enough to explore. It offers fascination, especially the soft kind: clouds, moving leaves or water that hold attention gently while leaving room for reflection. And it is compatible with what you want to do there. Natural settings tend to have all four, which is why the theory has centred on nature.
Soft fascination is the most distinctive idea in the framework, and the easiest to recognise. Watching a fire, waves on a shore or leaves moving in wind holds your attention without demanding anything. Your mind is free to wander and to settle. Hard fascination, such as a fast sports match or a busy video game, also captures attention without effort, but fills it completely, leaving little room for reflection. On Kaplan’s account, both rest directed attention, but only the soft kind leaves space to think.
Sources1Kaplan, S. (1995). The restorative benefits of nature: Toward an integrative framework. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 15(3), 169–182.
The theory made testable predictions, and early experiments looked promising. In two studies, Berman, Jonides and Kaplan found that walking in a park, or even viewing pictures of nature, improved performance on tests of directed attention, including repeating a string of digits backwards, compared with walking in a city or viewing urban scenes.
Systematic reviews have since tempered the picture. Ohly and colleagues pooled 31 studies and found support for three measures, two versions of the digit-span test and one trail-making test, but no marked benefit in the other ten analyses they ran. The studies were generally small and varied widely in how they measured attention.
An updated review by Stevenson, Schilhab and Bentsen looked at 42 more recent articles and tried to pin down which mental processes respond. Working memory and cognitive flexibility improved after exposure to nature, and attentional control did so less reliably, with low to moderate effect sizes. It is real evidence for a modest effect on some abilities, not a general brain refresh.
Part of the uncertainty is about the theory itself. Directed attention is hard to define precisely, different studies measured it with different tasks, and it is not always clear whether participants were tired enough for restoration to show. Both reviews call for larger, better-designed studies. None of this means nature does nothing for us; people consistently report feeling better outdoors. It means the specific claim about restoring attention is less settled than popular accounts suggest.
Sources2Berman, M. G., Jonides, J., & Kaplan, S. (2008). The cognitive benefits of interacting with nature. Psychological Science, 19(12), 1207–1212.3Ohly, H., White, M. P., Wheeler, B. W., Bethel, A., Ukoumunne, O. C., Nikolaou, V., & Garside, R. (2016). Attention Restoration Theory: A systematic review of the attention restoration potential of exposure to natural environments. Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, Part B, 19(7), 305–343.4Stevenson, M. P., Schilhab, T., & Bentsen, P. (2018). Attention Restoration Theory II: A systematic review to clarify attention processes affected by exposure to natural environments. Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, Part B, 21(4), 227–268.
A tempting conclusion is that if a photo of a forest can help, a screen full of greenery should do the job. The evidence says otherwise. Stevenson and colleagues found that real exposures may have a stronger restorative effect than virtual ones, although real exposures also tended to last longer. Browning and colleagues then pooled six experiments that compared actual natural settings with simulated versions of the same places, using the same mood questionnaire before and after. Positive mood rose in the real settings but not in the simulations. Both kinds of setting tended to reduce negative mood.
Simulated nature, in other words, can calm, but it seems to leave out something that makes the real thing uplifting. That matters for anyone tempted to treat a nature-themed screen as a substitute for going outside.
Sources4Stevenson, M. P., Schilhab, T., & Bentsen, P. (2018). Attention Restoration Theory II: A systematic review to clarify attention processes affected by exposure to natural environments. Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, Part B, 21(4), 227–268.5Browning, M. H. E. M., Shipley, N., McAnirlin, O., Becker, D., Yu, C.-P., Hartig, T., & Dzhambov, A. M. (2020). An actual natural setting improves mood better than its virtual counterpart: A meta-analysis of experimental data. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 2200.
OutBrick’s Journey runs through 167 brick-built villages, among them Lavender Hills, Bamboo Springs and Firefly Wetlands. We care about how they look and we hope they are pleasant places to pass through. They are not nature, and nothing in the research above tells us that looking at them restores attention. The puzzle itself is the opposite of soft fascination: solving a board is directed attention by design.
What a game can borrow from Kaplan’s framework is the absence of things that drain attention. No countdown, no flashing rewards, no voice asking for a response, nothing interrupting the board. OutBrick honours the system’s Reduce Motion setting and its nine brick friends speak only in text bubbles. That makes it a quieter kind of effort, not a restorative one. We explain the difference further in what makes a puzzle game calm, and you can see the villages on the Journey.
The honest claim for a short, calm game is the one supported elsewhere in our journal: after demanding work it can lift your mood, as we covered in micro-breaks at work. If what you want is restored attention, the evidence points outside.
Sources1Kaplan, S. (1995). The restorative benefits of nature: Toward an integrative framework. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 15(3), 169–182.5Browning, M. H. E. M., Shipley, N., McAnirlin, O., Becker, D., Yu, C.-P., Hartig, T., & Dzhambov, A. M. (2020). An actual natural setting improves mood better than its virtual counterpart: A meta-analysis of experimental data. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 2200.
If your attention is frayed and you have a few minutes, the research suggests roughly this order. None of it needs to be dramatic; a short walk counts. And if what you want is simply a small, satisfying change of gear, that is a fine reason to play too, as we argue in why a two-minute puzzle can feel like a proper reset.
- A walk somewhere green, even a small park or a tree-lined street.
- A few minutes looking out of a window at sky, trees or water.
- Pictures or video of nature, which may calm you even if they lift mood less than the real thing.
- A short, calm game or other absorbing activity, for a lift in mood rather than restored attention.
- What to avoid if you can: settings that demand constant vigilance, such as busy traffic or a feed of alerts.
Sources2Berman, M. G., Jonides, J., & Kaplan, S. (2008). The cognitive benefits of interacting with nature. Psychological Science, 19(12), 1207–1212.4Stevenson, M. P., Schilhab, T., & Bentsen, P. (2018). Attention Restoration Theory II: A systematic review to clarify attention processes affected by exposure to natural environments. Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, Part B, 21(4), 227–268.5Browning, M. H. E. M., Shipley, N., McAnirlin, O., Becker, D., Yu, C.-P., Hartig, T., & Dzhambov, A. M. (2020). An actual natural setting improves mood better than its virtual counterpart: A meta-analysis of experimental data. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 2200.
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Questions, answered
A few useful answers
What is attention restoration theory?
Attention restoration theory, developed by Rachel and Stephen Kaplan, proposes that effortful attention becomes fatigued with use and recovers in settings that engage attention gently, such as nature. Such settings offer a sense of being away, extent, soft fascination and compatibility with what you want to do.
Does looking at nature pictures improve concentration?
Some experiments found that viewing nature pictures improved performance on attention tests, but reviews show the effects are modest and inconsistent. Real natural settings seem to work better than simulated ones, at least for mood.
Can a video game restore attention?
There is no good evidence that a game restores attention in the sense the theory describes, since solving puzzles uses directed attention. Short casual games have been found to improve mood after demanding work, which is a smaller but real benefit.
Is virtual nature as good as real nature?
Not for mood. A meta-analysis of six experiments found that positive mood increased in real natural settings but not in simulated versions of them, although both tended to reduce negative mood.
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References
Where a source is a studio’s own history or a news account rather than a study, the article says so beside the claim.
- Kaplan, S. (1995). The restorative benefits of nature: Toward an integrative framework. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 15(3), 169–182. doi.org/10.1016/0272-4944(95)90001-2 (opens in a new tab)
- Berman, M. G., Jonides, J., & Kaplan, S. (2008). The cognitive benefits of interacting with nature. Psychological Science, 19(12), 1207–1212. doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02225.x (opens in a new tab)
- Ohly, H., White, M. P., Wheeler, B. W., Bethel, A., Ukoumunne, O. C., Nikolaou, V., & Garside, R. (2016). Attention Restoration Theory: A systematic review of the attention restoration potential of exposure to natural environments. Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, Part B, 19(7), 305–343. doi.org/10.1080/10937404.2016.1196155 (opens in a new tab)
- Stevenson, M. P., Schilhab, T., & Bentsen, P. (2018). Attention Restoration Theory II: A systematic review to clarify attention processes affected by exposure to natural environments. Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, Part B, 21(4), 227–268. doi.org/10.1080/10937404.2018.1505571 (opens in a new tab)
- Browning, M. H. E. M., Shipley, N., McAnirlin, O., Becker, D., Yu, C.-P., Hartig, T., & Dzhambov, A. M. (2020). An actual natural setting improves mood better than its virtual counterpart: A meta-analysis of experimental data. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 2200. doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.02200 (opens in a new tab)
