Psychologists have found time and again that a walk in a city park is much better for the tired brain than a walk down typical city streets. (Even a quick window view of some greenery can do a body good.) The leading explanation is called “attention restoration theory”: whereas our mental faculties get fatigued by the busy streets and tall buildings and crowded corners of urban life, they get refreshed by the undemanding nature of nature.
Most of the work on attention restoration theory has focused on adults or hyperactive children. But new research from Anne Schutte and Julia Torquati of the University of Nebraska and Heidi Beattie of Troy University extends the restorative power of urban trees to very young kids (under 8) whose attention capacities are healthy but still developing.
The research trio recruited two groups of children for the study (excluding those with diagnosed attention deficits): preschoolers (ages 4 and 5) and school aged (ages 7 and 8). Half the kids took a 20-minute walk through a typical urban environment, and half took a nature-filled stroll.
After the walk they kids returned to the lab and took a series of several tests designed to measure various aspects of their executive functioning. The idea was simple: if urban nature refreshed the mind, the kids who did the park walk should score higher than those who didn’t.
The researchers did find some evidence that trees can restore attention in young, healthy, developing brains. In other tests, however, nature didn’t have a measurable effect.
According to the research trio: [T]hese findings along with those from other studies have important implications for educators and policy-makers as they make decisions about green space in child playgrounds, amount of time for recess, and even the planting of trees and the provision of green space in urban neighborhoods.
