Nature videos modulate attentional processes towards emotional stimuli: an ERP study

Natural settings have often been referred as restorative (e.g., Stress Reduction Theory and Attention Restoration Theory). Despite the stress-reduction and cognitive restoration outcomes of being exposed to natural environments, the physiological underpinning of such effects are still not clear. A recent fMRI study (Sudimac et al., 2022) showed that a walk in natural environments may reduce amygdala activity in response to fearful and neutral faces. Such finding is important as it may point to specific brain structures involved in the process of restoration in response to the experience of natural settings. The present study aims to use a similar design as that of Sudimac et al., (2022), adapting their experimental paradigm to an EEG-based study. Contrarily to Sudimac et al., (2022) who employed an in-vivo exposure to natural settings, the present study employs video stimuli. Nature videos have been shown (see Grassini et al., 2022) to modulate brain activity in response to nature vs. control conditions, therefore we expect that watching videos may produce similar results than the in-vivo exposure. EEG data will allow to understand how nature videos may be responsible for modulating attentional processes towards emotional stimuli (faces), and possibly connect these attentional processes to a modulation of amygdala activity, attempting to indirectly confirm the results of Sudimac et al., (2022).