The Magic of Nature - Attention Restoration Theory and Fractals

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The Magic of Nature: Attention Restoration Theory and Fractals

While learning—and practicing—how to improve my focus, I stumbled upon Kaplan’s Attention Restoration Theory and the surprising power of nature to heal our attention. Along the way, I discovered the role of fractal patterns—structures that repeat across scales and appear everywhere, from coastlines and trees to art and digital design.

What struck me most is that this body of knowledge holds real, practical power. It can help people maintain well-being, sustain creativity, and do meaningful, focused work. Yet it remains far from common knowledge. Much of it is buried behind dense academic language, making it inaccessible to many who could benefit from it the most.

In this post, I want to do something different. I’ll introduce some of the most influential ideas and papers in this field in a simplified, intuitive way. This is a journey that takes us from ancient Greece to Jackson Pollock, and deep into the workings of the human brain—all in search of one of humanity’s most pressing questions:

How can we promote creativity, focus, and well-being in a distracted world?

Kaplan’s Attention Restoration Theory

The idea that nature improves health and supports learning is not new. In ancient Greece, the word Academia referred to an olive grove—Plato’s school was literally located among olive trees. Still, it wasn’t until the late 1980s and early 1990s that Stephen and Rachel Kaplan developed a systematic theory explaining why nature has this effect.

According to Attention Restoration Theory (ART), humans rely on two distinct types of attention:

  • Directed attention – the effortful, intentional focus used for work, studying, and problem-solving.

  • Involuntary attention – an effortless form of attention that is gently captured by interesting stimuli.

Mental fatigue occurs when we overuse directed attention. To recover, this system needs rest—specifically, a shift toward involuntary attention. Nature excels at enabling this shift: it engages our attention softly, without demanding effort, allowing the brain’s focus system to replenish.

The Kaplans also identified four key properties of environments that support attention restoration:

  • Being away – a sense of psychological distance from daily demands.

  • Compatibility – an environment that aligns with what people want to do, creating freedom rather than obligation.

  • Extent – enough richness and coherence to feel immersive and explore mentally.

  • Soft fascination – stimuli that gently hold attention without aggressively demanding it (unlike traffic, notifications, or advertisements).

The theory is compelling—but does it hold up experimentally?

Evidence from Experiments

In 2008, researchers at the University of Michigan conducted a now-classic experiment [1]. Participants first completed a cognitively demanding task that required memorizing a list of numbers and reciting them backward. They then took a short walk—either through a university garden or along nearby city streets. When they repeated the task afterward, those who had walked in nature performed significantly better. Their attention had been restored, exactly as ART predicted.

Follow-up studies, however, revealed some surprising details.

The advantage of nature did not seem to depend strongly on “being away” or “extent,” since both walks involved leaving the lab and exploring similar-sized areas. Compatibility also mattered less than expected: attention was restored even when participants reported not enjoying the walk. Remarkably, restoration occurred during snowstorms, heatwaves, and other uncomfortable conditions.

Even more striking, people showed measurable attention restoration simply by looking at images of nature—not as strongly as being outdoors, but significantly more than looking at urban scenes.

All signs pointed to one dominant factor: soft fascination. Something about the visual structure of natural environments seemed to matter more than comfort, enjoyment, or escape.

This raises a crucial question:
What does nature have, visually, that artificial environments usually lack?
And even more intriguingly: Can artificial environments be designed to restore attention as well?

This is where fractals enter the story.

Fractals

When most people hear the word fractals, they imagine perfect geometric patterns—shapes made of smaller, self-similar shapes repeating endlessly. While some natural forms (like ice crystals) resemble these ideal fractals, most natural environments exhibit statistical fractals.

Consider a tree. Each branch is composed of smaller branches, which are themselves composed of even smaller ones—but not in a perfectly regular way. The pattern repeats across scales, yet with variation.

To understand why this matters, we need to look at how visual processing works. Our eyes capture enormous amounts of information every moment. As this data moves through the brain, it is processed hierarchically: simple features combine into shapes, shapes into objects, and objects into meaningful scenes.

In many artificial environments, the most important information is concentrated at higher levels of this hierarchy. A car on the road matters far more than the curves of its wheels. As a result, higher-level cognitive systems do most of the work.

Fractals behave differently. They contain similar levels of visual complexity across multiple scales. No single level dominates. Perceptual processing is therefore distributed more evenly across the visual system. Instead of overloading one cognitive level, the work is shared—allowing the system to remain engaged while resting.

This balanced engagement is a key reason fractal-rich environments produce soft fascination.

Designing with Fractals

Once we understand the role of fractals, a natural question follows: Can we use them intentionally?

Here we encounter another key figure: Richard Taylor, a researcher whose work bridges psychology, physics, and art. Taylor has shown not only that fractals can restore attention, but that humans consistently prefer specific ranges of fractal complexity—patterns rich enough to be engaging, but not so complex that they demand effortful focus [2].

Even more fascinating, this preference appears across cultures and history. Temples from ancient Greece, India, and Mesopotamia exhibit these same fractal properties. Jackson Pollock’s paintings—often dismissed as chaotic—turn out to contain carefully tuned fractal structures.

Looking forward, Taylor argues that fractal design can be applied deliberately today: in window patterns, building façades, urban layouts, and even solar panel arrangements. In many cases, incorporating fractal geometry is surprisingly simple.

For people living in dense cities or working in offices far from natural views, this insight is powerful. It suggests that restorative environments are not limited to nature itself—they can be designed.

Although this kind of design is not yet widespread, it already appears in certain domains. Museums and art galleries are often intentionally created to promote soft fascination, and visitors frequently report feeling mentally restored. More recently, researchers have begun exploring whether digital environments, including computer games, can also be designed to be restorative rather than draining.

Sources

[1] Berman, Marc G., et al. “The Cognitive Benefits of Interacting with Nature.” Psychological Science, vol. 19, no. 12, 2008, pp. 1207–1212.
[2] Taylor, Richard. “The Potential of Biophilic Fractal Designs to Promote Health and Performance: A Review of Experiments and Applications.” Sustainability, vol. 13, no. 2, 2021, p. 823.