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The Wisdom of Psychopaths
In this engrossing journey into the lives of psychopaths and their infamously crafty behaviors, the renowned psychologist Kevin Dutton reveals that there is a...
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You are probably aware that eating plants is good for you. However, what you may not know is that plants can provide benefits even if your taste buds run for cover at the first mention of spinach. New research is beginning to show that just having plants in your workspace may improve how you think.
In a study to be published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology, researchers show that the mere presence of plants in an office setting boosts one’s ability to maintain attention.
As humans spend more of their lives in front of screens, scientists have devoted more attention to the effects these artificial environments have on the mind. Sometimes, this new study suggests, it may be possible to reap benefits with simple changes in decorating strategy.
These findings build on a body of research based on Attention Restoration Theory. According to this theory, the reason why you can stare at spreadsheets for only so long before wanting to toss your computer monitor through the window is that everyone has a limited capacity for this kind of work. This limited capacity system makes use of “directed attention” which is effortful, controlled voluntarily, and diminishes with use.
You can contrast this with the kind of attention that is engaged when you are out walking in a park. Your attention is drawn first to that leaf, then to another. The shadow of a bird streaking across the green grass pulls your eyes along… until a flash of color from flowers by the path grabs your focus. This second kind of attention, called undirected attention, is effortless, automatically oriented to interesting features of our surroundings, and, according to the theory, allows the directed attention system to rest and rejuvenate itself.
Scientists have shown that exposure to naturalistic environments, such as those with much foliage, has regenerative effects for directed attention. However, much of the research in this area has been done with natural scenes on a larger scale – for example, by having participants walk through a park or look at pictures of dense plant life.
Research on whether one can still attain the regenerative advantages by simply having a few plants in your workplace has led to mixed results. For example, in one study, participants in a college computer lab with plants showed increased productivity. However, another study failed to find any benefits associated with plants. Still others have found plant-associated benefits only for men, or only for women.
The authors of the present study suggest that these inconsistencies can result from the use of different tools between labs. Just as your doctor measures your health in a number of ways – from taking your blood pressure, to determining your body-fat percentage – so too do psychologists have a number of ways to measure attention. Each measurement tool, depending on how exactly it works and which aspect of attention it measures, may lead to a different result.
For this experiment, the authors decided to use a Reading Span Task, which involves reading a series of sentences aloud and remembering the last word in each sentence. Similar to the way you might need to remember some information from a spreadsheet before entering it into a word processing document, this task requires that you fluidly switch between attention demanding tasks: from reading and memorizing at one moment, to writing and recalling at the next. The authors chose this particular measure because the ability to remember and recall information while switching between tasks taps into the “central executive processes” which are thought to be a critical component for directed attention.
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8 Comments
Add CommentI'm sure the nature worship cult will love this. All it's basically saying is that if you rest and zone out every once in a while you work better.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTypical cheap a** corporations will have an epiphany: "Why don't we cut costs and buy real looking artificial plants instead?" Of course, employees will know this and subconsciously will feel repulsed at their employer's typical display of tasteless "cheapskatism."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHmm, your're right, the researchers need to look at this one, too. Do artificial plants give the same benefits?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI suspect that if you could fool people into thinking the plants were real, the benefits would be realized. This could actually be beneficial to those in government installations (i.e. underground nuclear silo's and military subs).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe problem is that people will usually figure out the plants are fake, and I suspect the benefit psychologically in knowing the plant is a real living entity (some studies show that living plants thrive when talked to, I presume in a loving voice). Who wants to contemplate the leaves of a fake plant? I'd ignore it because fake plants, no matter how real looking, simply annoy the hell out of me.
I never thought much of green & leafy plant life until I began to study nutritional plant pigments from an evolutionary angle:And, lo and behold, it's been a real eye opener! Green, leafy canopies were our primeval habitats, not to forget, and many of our present-day habits can be directly attributed to our original lifestyle, no doubt.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisInterior decorators thrive on the green theme as a pleasing placebo effect, too,because green makes us feel 'at home and at ease'..
Our closest relatives, the Great Apes, don't need pot plants as a replacement of their natural habitats (yet),
they follow the bedding ritual of: 'as you make your bed,
(from fresh leafy twigs,& on a daily basis!)
so must you lie in it.'
Interestingly enough, too, when I observed local or international TV presentations, especially with politicians, I saw that they were always always seated amongst plenty of pot plant & or flower arrangements!
Again, this makes sense in the light of evolutionary anthropology: The survival of the species depended on an ample-enough supply of chlorophyll proteins , which are
'living entities', and the providers of of solar power nutrition!
( A lack of green leafy fodder, due to climate changes, may have driven us out of our first tree top residences and forced us to walk away into the direction of HOMO SAPIENS latitudes! )
Thank God for our instinctual fondness of 'Greenleaves'!
For more colour-driven aspects of our human lifestyles, google 'Colour Eating' at www.youthevity.com
didnt anyone say that plants breathe O2 on us, which is just out of this world in benefit.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisand the colors!
and now you can grow a pet TickleMe Plant indoor that will close its leaves and lowers its branches on command when you Tickle It!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.ticklemeplant.com
My pet TickleMe Plant not only moves when you Tickle it but it closes its leaves at night and opens then in the morning. Google pet TickleMe Plant to grow one indoors
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