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Congress of the International Ergonomics Association

IEA 2018: Proceedings of the 20th Congress of the International Ergonomics Association (IEA 2018) pp 591–604Cite as

Do Indoor Plants Improve Performance Outcomes?: Using the Attention Restoration Theory

Part of the Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing book series (AISC,volume 825)

Abstract

The current study used the Attention Restoration Theory to investigate whether plants in an office context produced restorative effects that enable employees to perform better. This study was one of the first attempts to empirically investigate the effect of indoor plants on experiences of performance outcomes within South Africa. In this experimental study, 120 participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: (1) no plants or pictures of plants; (2) only plants; (3) only canvas pictures of plants. The rooms were identical in every other respect. Participants completed two tasks (a card-sorting task and a reading task) and two questionnaires, namely the connectedness to nature scale to assess participant’s nature identity and a perceived task performance questionnaire. The results from the ANOVA’s demonstrated a reduction in participants’ errors (F(2, 117) = 7.137, p = 0.001), a positive reaction to the given task (F(2, 117) = 8.904, p = 0.000), as well as reduction in participants’ task completion time (F(2, 117) = 43.422, p = 0.000) in the plants condition. The result from the two-way ANOVA’s demonstrated that nature identity did not moderate the above relationships (errors: F(1, 114) = 2.060, p = 0.132; completion time: F(1, 114) = 0.967, p = 0.383; reaction to the task: F(1, 114) = 0.017, p = 0.983).

Keywords

  • Indoor plants
  • Performance
  • Attention restoration theory

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, WITS 2050, South Africa

    Kaylin Adamson & Andrew Thatcher

Authors
  1. Kaylin Adamson
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  2. Andrew Thatcher
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kaylin Adamson .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of the Republic of San Marino, San Marino, San Marino

    Dr. Sebastiano Bagnara

  2. Centre for Clinical Risk Management and Patient Safety, Tuscany Region, Florence, Italy

    Dr. Riccardo Tartaglia

  3. Centre for Clinical Risk Management and Patient Safety, Tuscany Region, Florence, Italy

    Dr. Sara Albolino

  4. Fraunhofer FKIE, Bonn, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany

    Prof. Thomas Alexander

  5. International Ergonomics Association, Tokyo, Japan

    Prof. Yushi Fujita

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Adamson, K., Thatcher, A. (2019). Do Indoor Plants Improve Performance Outcomes?: Using the Attention Restoration Theory. In: Bagnara, S., Tartaglia, R., Albolino, S., Alexander, T., Fujita, Y. (eds) Proceedings of the 20th Congress of the International Ergonomics Association (IEA 2018). IEA 2018. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 825. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96068-5_65

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