Mark Berman

We would call that a directed attention fatigue state, and that's a good time to take a break.

Right, and the second form of attention Steve called involuntary attention.

And that's the kind of attention that's automatically captured by interesting stimulation in the environment.

So bright lights, loud noises, they automatically capture our attention and we don't really have any control over it.

And it's thought that involuntary attention is less susceptible to fatigue or depletion.

And you don't often hear people say, oh, I can't look at that beautiful waterfall anymore.

It's just too beautiful.

It's too tiring to look at.

I have to stop looking at it.

So the idea behind attention restoration theory is that if you can find environments that don't place a lot of demands on directed attention, while simultaneously having interesting stimulation that activates the involuntary attention, you could restore or replenish this precious directed attention resource.

And we think that a lot of natural environments sort of meet these criteria.

When you're looking at those waves at the ocean, it captures your involuntary attention, but it doesn't really capture all of your attentional resources.

You can kind of mind wander and think about other things while you're looking at those waves.

When you're walking through Times Square, it's also very interesting.

There's a lot of really interesting stimulation in Times Square that automatically captures involuntary attention, but it sort of captures all of your attentional resources.

You can't really mind wander or think about other things when you're in Times Square.

And Steve and Rachel thought that that kind of stimulation is not really going to be able to rest our directed attention abilities, that it might actually fatigue us even further.

There are certain simulation in the environment that our brains process more fluently, that it's just easier to process certain stimulation.

And that's also kind of related to soft fascination, that softly fascinating stimulation might also be sort of easier to process.

But what does that really mean?