Don't Worry be Happy - Using virtual environments to induce emotional states measured by subjective scales and heart rate parameters

Mood Worlds: A Virtual Environment for Autonomous Emotional Expression

“…Some studies allow participants to choose between a preset of different VEs [4], but most randomly assign participants to a specific condition (e.g. [44,83]). On a similar note, a recent review of commercial VR well-being apps found that only one app offered the possibility to (partly) autonomously design the environment [84].…”

“…More recently, VR has also been used as an MIP [83]. VR can be used to induce fear, which is, for instance, utilised in exposure therapy [48].…”

“…Further research has looked at the impact of specific elements in virtual scenarios [59,65]. Regarding visual cues, higher saturated and bright colours are more arousing and pleasant [44,54,55], fast-moving objects induce a higher arousal [24,60], and natural settings are perceived as more relaxing [50,83]. Previous work mainly focused on specific elements of VR.…”

Reflecting on Emotions within VR Mood Worlds

“…For example, Banos et al [4] only allowed participants to choose between present VEs, while other studies randomly assigned participants to specific emotioninducing VEs (e.g. [24,42]). Wagener et al [43] found a similar lack of user autonomy when investigating commercially available VR applications.…”

“…However, when analysing recent VR applications for ER [26], most use VR to induce emotions in its users, mostly for anxiety therapy [25] or for relaxation purposes [21,34,42]. This position paper argues that VR interventions to support ER should provide means for users to express their own complex emotions and thus support reflection and a deeper engagement with those emotions (fig.…”