Development of an affective database made of interactive virtual environments

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Computer Science
• Human-Computer Interaction

Background:

• Virtual Reality (VR) has significant potential for emotion induction, yet lacks dedicated affective databases.
• Existing affective databases for media like pictures, videos, and sounds are not directly applicable to immersive VR experiences.

Purpose of the Study:

• To validate ten interactive Virtual Environments (VEs) designed for VR to evoke specific emotions.
• To assess the reliability and adaptability of these VEs across different experimental setups.
• To establish a foundation for a VR affective database.

Main Methods:

• Development and validation of ten affective interactive Virtual Environments (VEs) linked to five distinct emotions.
• Testing conducted using two experimental setups with stereoscopic displays (non-immersive VR due to COVID-19).
• Collected data on participants' emotional responses across six discrete emotions plus neutrality, and assessed the sense of presence.

Main Results:

• The validated VEs successfully differentiated emotional responses based on the intended emotion.
• Comparison between experimental setups indicated high reliability and adaptability of the VEs.
• Participants reported varying degrees of emotional experience and presence within the VEs.

Conclusions:

• The validated affective VEs are suitable for inducing and studying emotions in a controlled VR setting.
• The findings support the development of a comprehensive VR affective database.
• The VEs demonstrate robustness and flexibility for diverse research applications and contexts.