A number of eye-tracking studies have shown that viewing natural environments is associated with reduced eye movement activity compared with viewing built environments. This has been linked to the cognitive benefits of viewing nature and explained in terms of Kaplan and Kaplan's Attention Restoration Theory. However, the theory has recently been criticized for the lack of empirical evidence supporting its framework. The first aim was to replicate the results of previous eye movement studies using different visual stimuli. In addition, we investigated whether reduced eye movements when viewing natural versus urban images could be explained by greater perceptual fluency and fractal complexity of the images. The participants (N = 66) viewed images of forests with and without foliage and images of urban apartment buildings while their eye movements were recorded. The self-reported perceptual fluency and fractal complexity of the presented images were measured. Analysis of eye movements revealed significantly less eye movement activity (a reduced number of fixations that are longer) when viewing natural images than urban ones, consistent with previous findings. There was no significant difference between images containing foliage and those without for any of the measured variables. However, mediation analysis did not show significant effects of perceptual fluency on eye fixations. Moreover, while previous research suggests that fractal structure may be one of the mechanisms underlying perceptual fluency, mediation analysis did not reveal any significant effects of fractal complexity on eye fixations. This raises the question of what causes the differences in eye movement patterns and the restorative effects of nature versus urban scenes. Further research should address the specific spatio-cognitive dimensions of natural images and the individual differences that may affect how people move their eyes when processing different types of scenes.

Faculty of Informatics and Management University of Hradec Králové 503 00 Hradec Králové Czech Republic

Zobrazit více v PubMed

Kaplan, R. & Kaplan, S.

Joye, Y., Pals, R., Steg, L. & Evans, B. L. New methods for assessing the fascinating nature of nature experiences. PubMed PMC

Yang, G., Yu, Z. & Zhang, J. Søderkvist kristensen, L. From preference to landscape sustainability: A bibliometric review of landscape preference research from 1968 to 2019.

Ohly, H. et al. Attention restoration theory: A systematic review of the attention restoration potential of exposure to natural environments. PubMed

Stevenson, M. P., Schilhab, T. & Bentsen, P. Attention restoration theory II: A systematic review to clarify attention processes affected by exposure to natural environments. PubMed

Browning, M. H. E. M., Saeidi-Rizi, F., McAnirlin, O., Yoon, H. & Pei, Y. The role of methodological choices in the effects of experimental exposure to simulated natural landscapes on human health and cognitive performance: A systematic review.

Joye, Y. & Dewitte, S. Nature’s broken path to restoration. A critical look at attention restoration theory.

Herzog, T. R., Black, A. M., Fountaine, K. A. & Knotts, D. J. Reflection and attentional recovery as distinctive benefits of restorative environments.

Holmqvist, K. et al.

Ernst, D. & Wolfe, J. M. How fixation durations are affected by search difficulty manipulations.

Poole, A. & Ball, L. J. Eye tracking in HCI and usability research: In

Siegle, G. J., Ichikawa, N. & Steinhauer, S. Blink before and after you think: Blinks occur prior to and following cognitive load indexed by pupillary responses. PubMed

Berto, R., Massaccesi, S. & Pasini, M. Do eye movements measured across high and low fascination photographs differ? Addressing Kaplan’s fascination hypothesis.

Hartig, T., Korpela, K., Evans, G. W. & Gärling, T. Validation of a measure of perceived environmental restorativeness.

Valtchanov, D. & Ellard, C. G. Cognitive and affective responses to natural scenes: Effects of low level visual properties on preference, cognitive load and eye-movements.

Franěk, M., Šefara, D., Petružálek, J., Cabal, J. & Myška, K. Differences in eye movements while viewing images with various levels of restorativeness.

Martínez-Soto, J., De La Fuente Suárez, L. A., Gonzáles-Santos, L. & Barrios, F. A. Observation of environments with different restorative potential results in differences in eye patron movements and pupillary size. PubMed PMC

Franěk, M., Šefara, D., Petružálek, J., Mlejnek, R. & van Noorden, L. Eye movements in scene perception while listening to slow and fast music. PubMed PMC

Batool, A., Rutherford, P., McGraw, P., Ledgeway, T. & Altomonte, S. Gaze correlates of view preference: Comparing natural and urban scenes.

Fu, H. & Xue, P. Cognitive restoration in following exposure to green infrastructure: An eye-tracking study.

Stevenson, M. P., Dewhurst, R., Schilhab, T. & Bentsen, P. Cognitive restoration in children following exposure to nature: Evidence from the attention network task and mobile eye tracking. PubMed PMC

Marois, A., Charbonneau, B., Szolosi, A. M. & Watson, J. M. The differential impact of mystery in nature on attention: An oculometric study. PubMed PMC

Joye, Y. & Van Den Berg, A. Is love for green in our genes? A critical analysis of evolutionary assumptions in restorative environments research.

Oppenheimer, D. M. The secret life of fluency. PubMed

Winkielman, P., Schwarz, N., Fazendeiro, T. A. & Reber, R. The hedonic marking of processing fluency: Implications for evaluative judgment. In

Reber, R., Schwarz, N. & Winkielman, P. Processing fluency and aesthetic pleasure: Is beauty in the perceiver’s processing experience? PubMed

Bertamini, M. & Makin, A. Brain activity in response to visual symmetry.

Bar, M. & Neta, M. Humans prefer curved visual objects. PubMed

Reber, R., Winkielman, P. & Schwarz, N. Effects of perceptual fluency on affective judgments.

Graf, L. K. M., Mayer, S. & Landwehr, J. R. Measuring processing fluency: One versus five items.

Besken, M. Picture-perfect is not perfect for metamemory: Testing the perceptual fluency hypothesis with degraded images. PubMed

Carr, E. W., Rotteveel, M. & Winkielman, P. Easy moves: Perceptual fluency facilitates approach-related action. PubMed

Voss, J. L. & Paller, K. A. Real-time neural signals of perceptual priming with unfamiliar geometric shapes. PubMed PMC

Wang, W., Li, B., Gao, C., Xiao, X. & Guo, C. Electrophysiological correlates associated with contributions of perceptual and conceptual fluency to familiarity. PubMed PMC

Purcell, T., Peron, E. & Berto, R. Why do preferences differ between scene types?

Hagerhall, C. M. et al. Investigations of human EEG response to viewing fractal patterns. PubMed

Hagerhall, C. M., Purcell, T. & Taylor, R. Fractal dimension of landscape silhouette outlines as a predictor of landscape preference.

Joye, Y., Steg, L., Ünal, A. B. & Pals, R. When complex is easy on the mind: Internal repetition of visual information in complex objects is a source of perceptual fluency. PubMed

Van Den Berg, A. E., Joye, Y. & Koole, S. L. Why viewing nature is more fascinating and restorative than viewing buildings: A closer look at perceived complexity.

Avnir, D., Biham, O., Lidar, D. & Malcai, O. Is the geometry of nature fractal?

Ho, S., Mohtadi, A., Daud, K., Leonards, U. & Handy, T. C. Using smartphone accelerometry to assess the relationship between cognitive load and gait dynamics during outdoor walking. PubMed PMC

Franěk, M., Petružálek, J. & Šefara, D. Eye movements in viewing urban images and natural images in diverse vegetation periods.

Faul, F., Erdfelder, E., Lang, A. G. & Buchner, A. G*Power 3: A flexible statistical power analysis program for the social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences. PubMed

Doughty, M. J. & Naase, T. Further analysis of the human spontaneous eye Blink rate by a cluster analysis-based approach to categorize individuals with ‘normal’ versus ‘frequent’ eye Blink activity. PubMed

Karperien, A. FracLac for ImageJ (Version 2.5). http://rsb.info.nih.gov/ij/plugins/fraclac/FLHelp/Introduction.htm. Cited 15 March 2025. (2012). 10.1016/j.ijhcs.2009.04.002

Tuch, A. N., Bargas-Avila, J. A., Opwis, K. & Wilhelm, F. H. Visual complexity of websites: Effects on users’ experience, physiology, performance, and memory.

Nisbet, E. K., Zelenski, J. M. & Murphy, S. A. The nature relatedness scale: Linking individuals’ connection with nature to environmental concern and behavior.