What I Wouldn't Mind Doing

It would've been too long to put as the title for this post, so I had to shorten it from the original "What I Wouldn't Mind Doing After I Graduate". This, of course pertains to the degree in Psychology that I hope to procure from Sunway in two years' time. A good number of people have left me either befuddled or confounded or both when they ask the inevitable "So what do you do one ah?" question. I'll admit the shoulder shrugs were honest because it's pretty hard to pick out some good contoh-contoh aktiviti at a moment's notice, but here's one pretty interesting example of what people in my field of study do for a living.

Taken from Newsweek, an article titled IN OUR NATURE described, among others, the work of environmental psychologist Peter Kahn in finding out how nature and high-definition digital representations of nature influence our levels of motivation.

In one of his experiments, the researchers used High-Definition Plasma TVs to act as digital 'windows' in workers' otherwise windowless rooms and spaces. Then they proceeded to monitor various psychological functions and measures. The result? Simply having digital views of the great mountain ranges and lush rolling plains, even though only in digital form, improved the workers' general mental well-being. Cool huh?

Then they went further on to compare HDTV nature and real mother nature. When given a small stress load, workers having HDTV windows reported no differences compared to those given a blank wall. But those who were given real, authentic windows with a natural setting reported a calming effect that helped to ease the stress load. Double coolness, I thought :D

The proposed theory by Marc Berman, another psychologist is that our brains engage in two forms of information processing.

One is the Focus Mode whereby we delegate a lot of thoughts and effort to analytical information processing, much like the kind of attention we need to solve a mathematical problem or figure out the tax-submission procedures. We can't stay on Focus Mode all the time however, and relaxing interactions with nature is one way to help our brain shift into Passive Mode to help the brain recover the energy used in Focus Mode and just basically recharge. How do we know if the theory works? He tested it of course.

Using difficult cognitive tests, Berman and his colleagues purposely exhausted all the attention and concentration abilities of a group of volunteers. Then they sent them out for a three-mile walk, but split into 2 groups: One group walked along the busy Huron Street, while another took a leisurely stroll along a secluded part of Ann Arbor. After the walk, they were tested again back in the lab for their focus and concentration. The result? Expectedly, the group that went for the quiter walk along Ann Arbor's natural surroundings performed significantly better in the tests.

To put it in one sentence, what these psychologists are saying is that using the science of psychology, they've discovered that interacting with the natural environment plays an important role in maintaing our psychological health and also in boosting our mental fitness levels.

Now that's way cool right? Right? :)