Nature is complex, it’s true, but its complexity is of a kind that our brains are readily able to process. When we’re surrounded by nature, we experience a high degree of “perceptual fluency,” notes Yannick Joye, a senior researcher at the ISM University of Management and Economics in Lithuania. Basking in such ease gives our brains a rest, Joye explains, and also makes us feel good; we react with positive emotion when information from our environment can be absorbed with little effort.
