Emotional Responses to Spatial Design in a Regeneration Project: A Study Using Virtual Reality and Galvanic Skin Response Methodology

Abstract

The exploration of emotional responses to spatial design within the context of urban regeneration is a central concern for both researchers and designers. Notably, there exists a current gap in considering emotions in urban regeneration projects. Moreover, existing methods for identifying people’s emotional reactions within spatial environments primarily rely on self-reporting, which has significant limitations and heavily depends on participants’ subjective expressions. As a result, it becomes essential to collect and analyze participants’ physiological data using objective measures. This study introduces a systematic approach to acquire unbiased data concerning people’s emotional responses to spatial design. By employing Virtual Reality and Galvanic Skin Response techniques, this proposed method presents a structured framework that enables precise emotional insights from users before finalizing the design.