An experimental test of the impact of avian diversity on attentional benefits and enjoyment of people experiencing urban green-space

Biodiversity may play a key role in generating the well-being benefits of
visiting green-spaces. The ability of people to accurately perceive
variation in biodiversity is, however, unclear and evidence supporting
links between biodiversity exposure and well-being outcomes remains
equivocal. In part, this is due to the paucity of controlled experimental
studies that deal adequately with confounding factors that covary with
biodiversity. Attention restoration theory (ART) proposes that natural
environments contain many softly fascinating stimuli that provide visitors
with a sense of separation from their normal settings and routines,
switching off direct attention and allowing recovery from attention
fatigue. Increased biodiversity could increase these stimuli, and ART
therefore potentially provides a mediating effect linking biodiversity to
well-being. Here, we conduct a controlled experiment in which participants
virtually experience urban green-space containing high and low levels of
avian biodiversity (altered by manipulating bird song). Respondents
accurately identified the contrast in biodiversity and reported greater
enjoyment of the high biodiversity treatment than the low diversity
control. Higher biodiversity did not, however, elicit greater
self-reported stimulation or restoration, and did not increase perceived
restorativeness scores or attentional capacity (quantified using the Digit
Span Backwards attention test). Respondents that were more connected to
nature, however, had greater attentional capacity following exposure to
green-space. Our study provides rare experimental evidence that people can
accurately detect variation in biodiversity, that high avian diversity
boosts visitor perceptions of urban green-space quality, and that people
with increased nature connectedness show enhanced attentional capacity.