Feeling Like Humans: Low-cost wearable sensors for design research in the age of AI

Abstract

Spatial emotions have played a critical role in visual-spatial environmental assessment, which can be evaluated using wearable physiological sensors. However, information on virtual spatial sequence assessment with quantitative emotional responses needs to be more comprehensive in the literature. Thus, designers' ability to assess sequential space experiences quantitatively and cost-effectively is limited before the design is finalized. This research measures the emotions expressed while walking in virtual reality (VR) with different spatial parameters using electroencephalograms (EEGs) and electrodermal activity (EDA). Twenty-six subjects experienced three 3D scanned virtual spaces with a VR headset (Quest 2 device) corresponding to the sequential space parameters of different shapes, heights, widths, and lengths. Simultaneously, the EEGs and EDA measured the subjects' responses during their virtual walking. We visualized their physiological data to compare the consistencies among the virtual spatial sequences and human feelings in the VR experiences. Experimental results show that the parameter changes of VR spatial sequences can arouse EDA signals and significant fluctuations in the five frequency ranges of brain waves. Specifically, in terms of VR spaces and emotions, the experiments find that walking virtually from higher to lower spaces increases Alpha and Beta brain wave activity in AF7 and AF8. This research attempts to offer a useful emotion measurement tool in virtual architectural design using multi-physiological sensors, potentially empowering AI human reaction prediction in the future.