Natural and Social Environments affect Cognition

Two doctoral students in our lab have explored two quite different ways in which particular environments impact cognition:

Nature Connectedness and Creative Cognition

This work was done with Lai Yin Carmen Leong whose thesis work shows that there is reasonable evidence that feeling connected with nature is associated with more creative cognition, particularly divergent thinking-type creativity.

Leong, L. Y. C., Hill, S. R., & Fischer, R. (2021). An empirical investigation of the relationship between nature engagement, connectedness with nature, and divergent-thinking creativity. (Pre-print doi 10.31219/osf.io/86c5y)
Leong, L. Y. C., Fischer, R., & McClure, J. (2014). Are nature lovers more innovative? The relationship between connectedness with nature and cognitive styles. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 40, 57–63. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2014.03.007

Social Isolation and Cognition

Catherine Whitehouse’s doctorate examined factors that predicted social isolation in a representative sample of 418 older adults who contributed to the New Zealand Longitudinal Study of Ageing. Her research showed that a lack of emotionally rich social connections was predictive of poor future cognitive performance.

‘Lonely in a crowd’ can reduce brain function

Catherine Whitehouse’s DClinPsych The impact of social relationships on cognitive performance in the older adult: Emotional loneliness is detrimental to cognitive performance.