Poster #150 - Do infants and children show preferences for and/or categorize natural versus built environmental types?

• In Event: Poster Session 09

Abstract

This series of experiments explored whether
1) Infants show preferences for natural versus built environments, and
2) Children categorize natural versus built environments similarly to adults.
These questions are important to answer, as research shows that exposure to natural versus built environments is associated with differential child health outcomes; exposure to natural environments may help promote child health equity (e.g., Feng, 2017). For example, lower childhood exposure to natural environments is associated with worse mental health in adulthood (Preuss et al., 2019), and childhood access to natural environments is associated with lower risk of psychiatric disorders from adolescence onwards (Engemann et al., 2019). It thus seems important to increase childhood exposure to natural environments. Yet, despite these benefits of natural environments to children, little is known about children’s perception of or preference for certain environments. Do infants and children prefer to view one type of environment over another? Do they conceptualize/form categories of natural versus built environments similarly to adults?

Experiment 1
In response to adult preferences for viewing natural versus built environments, researchers have posited an evolutionary root for these preferences. To test whether this preference is present early in development, we collected data using a visual paired comparison procedure in which infants (age 6-12 months) were simultaneously shown photographs of natural and built scenes. We compared looking times to these categories. Infants showed no preference for viewing natural versus built environments. Taken together with Meidenbauer and colleagues’ (2019) findings that children older than infancy also do not show clear preferences for natural over built environments, this research calls into question an innate preference for viewing natural scenes. Rather, this preference may be learned over the lifespan, or may emerge in other yet untested contexts. Or, infants and children may not categorize/conceptualize these environments the same way as adults.

Experiment 2
The purpose of this project was to examine the differences in how adults and children (ages 5-12) visually categorize built versus natural environments. Little is known about the development of the perception of these environments in children. Participants were shown a series of photos and were asked to indicate by keyboard choice whether the photo best represented a natural environment or built environment. Children categorized significantly more photos as natural than did adults, and adults categorized significantly more photos as built than did children.

Two primary conclusions emerged from this study. First, children are more likely to categorize a photo as a natural environment than adults are. Secondly, participants were split when categorizing a subset of photographs: half of the participants categorized these as built, while half categorized these as natural. This suggests that many environments in the real world cannot be categorized neatly as natural or built, but instead, a different level of categorization may be needed to distinguish between such environments. The potential for such hybrid environments, still containing some elements of nature, to be restorative remains to be investigated—especially if, as results suggest, children are more flexible in considering environments “natural” than are adults.

Authors

• Kerry E Jordan, Utah State University
  Presenting Author

• Salif Mahamane

• Justice Morath