78. Pastoral Scenes Make People Happy

Pastoral Imagery

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• Caption: Albert Bierstadt – Among the Sierra Nevada, California

Denis Dutton: TED

• https://www.ted.com/talks/denis_dutton_a_darwinian_theory_of_beauty?utm_source=tedcomshare&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=tedspread (Embed)
• According to Denis Dutton, people are drawn to beautiful pastoral scenes, such as the one before, which speak to our baser instincts of survival: food, protection, and water. This dates back to the Pleistocene Era in our evolution.
• Check out his TED talk for more –––––––>

Attention Restoration

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• Caption: Fredric Edwin Church – Twilight in the Wilderness, 1860
• Numerous other studies have been done – Mark Berman, 2008; Roger Ulrich, 1984; Peter Kahn, 2009 – to show the effects of "attention restoration", the brain's way of "resetting" after viewing a pastoral setting. In particular, Peter Kahn's study showed that people who were actually in the setting, not just viewing on a monitor or television, actually had a positive health effects, as well.