When nature calls: The importance of restroom design to support cognition

It is possible that an often-overlooked space in building design is among the most important in supporting cognition: the restroom. In rat studies, a neural mechanism known as replay has been linked with learning and planning, and occurs during certain wakeful pause behaviors including defecating. If, like rats, the human brain is also wired to replay, then optimizing behavioral and environmental conditions – such as toileting and restroom design -- could foster cognitive benefits. Replay is dependent on external environmental conditions, and is supported when surrounding sensory stimuli are not demanding attention. Thus, replay may be facilitated environmentally by pairing wakeful pauses with environments conducive to supporting a defocused, internal processing state. Because nature-like features have been linked with guiding similar wakeful offline states such as defocused attention and mind-wandering, using nature in restroom design may help foster important cognitive mechanisms during toileting by facilitating replay through a supportive sensory experience. This paper aims to highlight to the impact of the environment on neural mechanisms with implications for researched-informed design. In this example, the restroom is one key space which lends itself to benefitting from research-informed design guidelines as the evidence base grows.