自然をじっくり見ると、幸せになる。

Received: 10 November 2022 | Accepted: 21 March 2024 DOI: 10.1002/pan3.10648 RESEARCH ARTICLE The nature gaze: Eye-tracking experiment reveals well-being benefits derived from directing visual attention towards elements of nature Whitney Fleming¹ | Brian Rizowy² | Assaf Shwartz² ¹Bangor University, School of Environmental and Natural Sciences, Bangor, UK ²Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning, Human and Biodiversity Research Lab, Haifa, Israel Correspondence Whitney Fleming Email: whitney.fleming92@gmail.com Funding Information European Research Council (ERC) project NEAT (Grant Number: 852633- ERC_Zuckerman STEM Leadership Fellowship Handling Editor: Roman Carrasco Abstract 1. The urban lifestyle has a profound effect on mental health, contributing signifi- cantly to the challenges faced by people who reside in urban areas. Growing empirical evidence underscores the potential of nature to alleviate these mental health burdens. However, we still lack understanding of which specific natural elements provide these benefits. 2. Using eye-tracking technology, we experimentally explored the relationships be- tween intentional visual attention to natural (green) and human-made (grey) ele- ments in urban areas and their association with well-being measures. Participants took a 45-min outdoor walk that simulates a walk to and from work, in which we examined pre- and post-measures of cognition, affect, anxiety and perceived restorativeness. Participants were prompted to direct their attention to green, grey or a mixture of both elements. By analysing participants' eye movements and patterns, we determined adherence to experimental conditions and related visual attention to natural elements. 3. The experimental groups instructed to direct their visual attention to green, grey or a mix of both infrastructures exhibited differences in negative and positive af- fect, anxiety and perceived restorativeness, but not in cognition after a walk in an urban environment. 4. The percentage of time spent viewing natural elements showed that people who focused more on green features reported a decrease in anxiety and higher per- ceived restorativeness. In contrast, those who spent more time viewing grey ele- ments reported increased anxiety and lowered perceived restorativeness. The percentage of time viewing natural elements was not linked to affect or cognition. Viewing trees showed the strongest association with well-being measures com- pared to other natural elements. 5. Together, our results indicate that a simple behaviour change (directing visual attention to elements of nature instead of grey elements) can produce mental health benefits in the form of reducing anxiety and perceived restoration for This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is no