Research Article: Folk Festivals as Restorative Environments Based on Attention Restoration Theory–The Roles of Liminal Experience and Timing

Abstract:
Social psychological pressure caused by high-level urbanization will cause psychological fatigue and even seriously affect people’s physical and mental health. Environmental psychology research has found a kind of “restorative environment” that can help people better recover from psychological fatigue and negative emotions caused by stress. Because of its great value in promoting the sustainable development of people and society, this kind of environment has become a research focus of related disciplines such as environmental psychology and tourism management. Thus far, the research on restorative environment has mainly focused on the natural environment and its natural components, while there has been little research on the humanistic social environment. One view is that the humanistic social environment as a restorative environment is less effective than the natural environment. If this is indeed generally true, how can we explain the cultural creation of various settling spirits in human society and the vigorous development of cultural tourism in the world? The concept of “restorative environment” was put forward by Kaplan et al based on the influences of outdoor life on psychology. They applied this concept in subsequent studies to develop attention restoration theory (ART) and further confirmed the physical and mental restoration function of museums and monasteries. Research on the restoration function of the existing humanistic social environment has mainly focused on the urban built environment to investigate the restorative characteristics of the environment, as well as the influences of personal and social factors such as age, personality, and culture on the restoration value. On the whole, first of all, compared with the rich and colorful social life of human society, the current research is extremely scarce; second, current research has been limited to museums and religious places,, cemeteries, and other “soft fascination” environments. “Soft fascination” environment is one that do not entirely occupy the space in one’s head, although capturing attention effortlessly. While the “hard fascination” environment that can provide strong stimulation lacks research. “Hard fascination” environment is one that forcefully grab one’s attention and is difficult to resist. As a result, it tend to fill the mind, leaving little room for more peripheral mental activity or reflection. Especially regarding festivals, which were originally created to meet people’s spiritual needs and psychological comfort, no research has been carried out. Finally, research on the restoration mechanism of humanistic social environment remains quite scarce, leaving much work to be done to fully reveal the logic and influence boundary of restoration. Due to the richness and heterogeneity of human society and culture, the restoration and restoration mechanisms of different humanistic social environments are often different. Empirical research based on various humanistic social environments will provide a necessary accumulation of data for the development of related theories.

Introduction:
Social psychological pressure caused by high-level urbanization will cause psychological fatigue and even seriously affect people’s physical and mental health. Environmental psychology research has found a kind of “restorative environment” that can help people better recover from psychological fatigue and negative emotions caused by stress. Because of its great value in promoting the sustainable development of people and society, this kind of environment has become a research focus of related disciplines such as…

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