Do you really know how to choose your own Hotel? If I were you, I would pay more attention to the views other than anyhting else first! What do you think?
Stressed out? Can’t focus on your work? Rachel and Stephen Kaplan, professors of psychology at the University of Michigan, might say you’re suffering from Directed Attention Fatigue, and their prescription is a lot more fun than you might think.
In their research on restorative environments, the Kaplans found that just looking at natural scenes through a window relieves exactly the kind of fatigue caused by multiple demands on your attention (e.g., meetings, spreadsheets, kids, your Blackberry). By engaging what the Kaplans call “fascination,” a form of attention where you just can’t help but notice everything around you, a short nature break restores the capacity to pay attention when effort is required.
There’s just one catch. Fascination, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, so the same natural scene won’t restore every person. The truth is — not unexpectedly — that natural beauty is highly subjective.
