Is a Dark Virtual Environment Scary?

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of nighttime lighting conditions and stress on the affective appraisal of a virtual environment (VE). The effective application of VEs in emotionally intense simulations requires precise control over their characteristics that affect the user's emotions and behavior. It is known that humans have an innate fear of darkness, which increases after exposure to stress and extrapolates to ecologically valid (immersive) VEs. This study investigated if the simulated level of illumination determines the affective appraisal of a VE, particularly after stress. Participants explored either a daytime or a nighttime version of a VE, after performing either an acute psychosocial stress task (Trier Social Stress Test, or TSST) or a relaxing control task. The affective qualities of the VE were appraised through the Russel and Pratt semantic questionnaire on the valence and arousal dimensions. Distress was assessed through free salivary cortisol, the state self-report scale from the Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), and heart rate. In addition, memory for scenic details was tested through a yes-no recognition test. Free salivary cortisol levels, heart rates, and scores on the STAI all indicate that participants who were subjected to the stress task indeed showed signs of distress, whereas participants in the control group showed no signs of stress. The results of the semantic questionnaire and the recognition test showed no significant overall effect of time-of-day conditions on the affective appraisal of the VE or on the recognition of its details, even after prior stress. The experiences of users exploring the VE were not affected by the simulated lighting conditions, even after acute prior stress. Thus, lowering the illumination level in a desktop VE is not sufficient to elicit anxiety. Hence, desktop VE representations are different from immersive VE representations in this respect. This finding has implications for desktop VE representations that are deployed for serious gaming and training purposes.

Why Does It Always Rain on Me? Influence of Gender and Environmental Factors on Usability, Technology Related Anxiety and Immersion in Virtual Environments

“…Additionally, female participants rated the technology as being significantly more useful and beneficial when they were assigned to the rainy condition, whereas male participants found it to be more convenient and suitable when they experienced the sunny condition. The fact, that previous studies did not find a significant effect of lighting conditions on the experience of the virtual environment [25], yet instead indicated the efficacy of virtual environments as affective tools for shaping the virtual experience [19], underlines the importance of emotional processes in this context. In the present study, the sunny park indeed seemed to evoke more positive emotional responses, whereas the rainy park seemed to be associated with rather negative emotional states (see Section 5.1).…”

“…It seems that a medium must be able to induce a feeling of presence in order to provoke affective responses [19]. Yet, some other studies showed that the lighting level of the virtual environment alone has no effect on the affective state of the users [25]. Gender: Gender differences are a widely researched field.…”

A review of the use of psychophysiological methods in game research

“…For example, it has been reported that people respond to virtual characters the same way they do to other people (facial EMG [78], pupil size, eye tracking [44]) and that this is (at least to some extent) dependent on how humanlike the virtual character looks [10]. One interesting study [74] demonstrated that as the sole stimulus, darkness on a desktop virtual environment does not induce anxiety or stress (measured by HR and cortisol level), contrary to darkness in the real world and in immersive virtual environments. However, it is unclear to which extent games can be likened to virtual environments, which lack the intrinsic motivation provided by game mechanics (cf.…”

Is virtual reality emotionally arousing? Investigating five emotion inducing virtual park scenarios

“…Toet et al, 2009). In research, MIPs are predominantly used to study the effects of emotional states on specific cognitive functions such as memory (e.g., Blaney, 1986) or automatic biases in information processing (e.g., Gemar et al, 2001).…”