We investigated the possible restorative effects of exposure to awe-evoking scenes (natural/built) compared with mundane scenes (natural/built). A careful selection of visual stimuli was carried out, followed by an experiment with 250 participants. We included a mentally fatigued condition and a not mentally fatigued condition (i.e., control group). Participants’ performance on an attentional task and positive affect were recorded before (T0) and after (T1) exposure to one of four slideshows (i.e., natural/built, awe-evoking; natural/built, mundane). In addition, participants reported how restored they felt after the slideshow presentation, and how awe-evoking and familiar the slideshow was for them. Our depletion task did not affect participants’ performance on the attentional task at T0, so we cannot claim that psychological restoration took place. Nevertheless, we found positive effects of exposure to awe-evoking scenes, and we provide alternative explanations for these effects.

中文翻译：

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接触令人敬畏的自然和建筑场景对认知表现和影响有积极影响

我们调查了与世俗场景（自然/建造）相比，暴露在令人敬畏的场景（自然/建造）中可能产生的恢复效果。仔细选择了视觉刺激，然后进行了 250 名参与者的实验。我们包括精神疲劳状态和非精神疲劳状态（即对照组）。参与者在注意力任务和积极影响上的表现在（T0）和之后（T1）暴露于四个幻灯片之一（即，自然/构建，令人敬畏；自然/构建，平凡）被记录下来。此外，参与者还报告了他们在幻灯片演示后感觉如何，以及幻灯片对他们来说是多么令人敬畏和熟悉。我们的耗竭任务不影响参与者在 T0 时注意力任务的表现，所以我们不能声称发生了心理恢复。尽管如此，我们发现了接触令人敬畏的场景的积极影响，我们为这些影响提供了替代解释。