| Why do people so commonly prefer natural scenes over urban scenes? Answers to this question have implications for the development and application of research on environmental aesthetics. In a series of three experiments, we studied how the need for and the likelihood of psychological restoration affected preference for a forest versus an urban centre. In this work, we treated preference as an attitude toward a behaviour that a person could perform in either environment, namely, walking for one hour. We also manipulated the need for restoration - specifically, the degree of attentional fatigue - experienced by the person just prior to the walk. The fatigue manipulation involved either scenarios or naturalistic conditions. The walk itself was simulated; we... |
