Open AccessNature benefits revisited: Differences in gait kinematics between nature and urban images disappear when image types are controlled for likeability
Author(s) -
Daria A Burtan,
Jeremy F. Burn,
Ute Leonards
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0256635
Subject(s) - gait , kinematics , cognition , cognitive psychology , psychology , sample (material) , physical medicine and rehabilitation , gait analysis , computer vision , artificial intelligence , computer science , medicine , chemistry , physics , classical mechanics , chromatography , neuroscience
Exposure to urban environments requires more cognitive processing than exposure to nature; an effect that can even be measured analysing gait kinematics whilst people walk towards photographic images. Here, we investigated whether differences in cognitive load between nature and urban scenes are still present when scenes are matched for their liking scores. Participants were exposed to images of nature and urban scenes that had been matched a priori for their liking scores by an independent participant sample (n = 300). Participants (N = 44) were either asked to memorise each image during walking or to rate each image for its visual discomfort after each walk. Irrespective of experimental task, liking score but not environment type predicted gait velocity. Moreover, subjective visual discomfort was predictive of gait velocity. The positive impact of nature described in the literature thus might, at least in part, be due to people’s aesthetic preferences for nature images.