Why We Should Experience "Soft Fascination"

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In North Carolina, where I reside, different-sized cities and towns schedule monthly activities that are free to the public. I enjoy attending as my schedule permits.

This month, I journeyed about one hour east to attend one of these events; it was a warm and pleasant early spring evening. The featured event was an exhibit of the artwork, letters, and life experiences of incarcerated or formerly incarcerated North Carolina-based people.

Another feature was a collection of portraits painted by a local artist. The models in the portraits were people who have experienced being unhoused. The artist provided brief descriptions of the personalities, backgrounds, or behaviors of the people as she experienced them while painting them. All of the art effortlessly focused attendees' minds on the humanization of marginalized people who are often dehumanized.

A silhouette of a presumably unhoused person at night, searching a garbage can.

Source: Joshua Sun/Unsplash

The Experience of "Hard Fascination"

I—and likely the other attendees of the exhibit—was able to feel the human spirit of the featured people. I could imagine them and think about their life experiences.

These are what researchers have labeled to be kinds of important, effortless, and invaluable hard fascination experiences. Researchers might also describe my experience as requiring moderate to hard focus (Basu, Duvall, & Kaplan, 2019).

During this experience of hard fascination, I wasn't able to bring forth any thoughts that were unrelated to the incarcerated people or the unhoused persons. This is understandable because hard fascination is defined as stimuli that forcefully grab our attention, making them difficult to resist (Basu, Duvall, & Kaplan, 2019).

What is "Soft Fascination"?

In comparison, researchers have defined soft fascination as also stemming from effortless attention—but it is not the all-consuming attention that overwhelms the mind's capacity to process other unrelated thoughts.

Researchers describe soft fascination as attention that is less demanding on our mental capacity. Therefore, during soft fascination, we can reflect on other unresolved thoughts while we are captivated by something in our immediate environment.

Soft fascination allows our minds to rest. We experience a restoration from the hard fascination that frequently consumes us.

This distinction between soft fascination and hard fascination addresses the important concept of mental bandwidth, the amount of capacity that our minds have to process information. Mental bandwidth is not unlimited. It can become overwhelmed and filled to capacity—but not during soft fascination.

A contemplative looking person walking a snowy pathway between evergreen trees.

Source: Ashlyn Ciara/Unsplash

Why Does Soft Fascination Matter?

Like with hard fascination, during soft fascination, we still experience effortless attention to what captivates us in the moment. Yet, unlike with hard fascination, we still have the mental space available to reflect on any new or perhaps lingering thoughts. For example, we can experience fascination with a soft stimulus while also contemplating our purpose for being in the world, our creative interests, or our love for family or friends.

Soft fascination may be healthy for our minds by giving us a break from hectic hustle culture, stressors, and disconnection from nature, a site of possible multisensory soft fascination and health benefits (Franco, Shanahan, & Fuller, 2017). Researchers Basu, Duvall, and Kaplan (2019) also discovered that their study participants perceived nature-based activities as their preferred ways to experience soft fascination.

It's important in today's stressful, chaotic, 21st-century world that we learn to conserve mental bandwidth to benefit rest and restoration. This also means that we might consider making more time to incorporate experiences of soft fascination into our daily lives. We may also experience reduced activity in areas of the brain (amygdala and prefrontal cortex) and increased control by the peripheral nervous system (parasympathetic system) during mental rest and restoration.

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For an evidence-based list of activities that can promote soft-fascination, go here.