Exposure to Awe-Evoking Natural and Built Scenes Has Positive Effects on Cognitive Performance and Affect. Issue 10 (December 2020) - Collado, Silvia
We investigated the possible restorative effects of exposure to awe-evoking scenes (natural/built) compared with mundane scenes (natural/built). A careful selection of visual stimuli was carried out, followed by an experiment with 250 participants. We included a mentally fatigued condition and a not mentally fatigued condition (i.e., control group). Participants' performance on an attentional task and positive affect were recorded before (T0) and after (T1) exposure to one of four slideshows (i.e., natural/built, awe-evoking; natural/built, mundane). In addition, participants reported how restored they felt after the slideshow presentation, and how awe-evoking and familiar the slideshow was for them. Our depletion task did not affect participants' performance on the attentional task at T0, so we cannot claim that psychological restoration took place. Nevertheless, we found positive effects of exposure to awe-evoking scenes, and we provide alternative explanations for these effects.