Positive Technologies for Understanding and Promoting Positive Emotions

The impact of virtual reality natural and built environments on affective responses: a systematic review and meta-analysis

This study aims to evaluate the extent to which virtual reality (VR) natural and built settings affect emotional states. Web of Science, SCOPUS, and PubMed were searched for relevant articles prior to February 2022. Of 15 articles identified for systematic review, 6 met the inclusion criteria for meta-analysis (studies with only pre- and post-condition measures of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) were included). Both positive affect (g = 0.20, p = 0.001) and negative affect (g = - 0.30, p = 0.001) change scores for the VR natural environment were statistically significant. On the other hand, change scores for VR built environment were not significant in both positive affect (g = - 0.08, p = 0.355) and negative affect (g = - 0.08, p = 0.058). The findings revealed that, in addition to a VR natural environment, a VR built environment is capable of providing restorative experiences against negative mood in some circumstances.

Feeling Virtually Present Makes Me Happier: The Influence of Immersion, Sense of Presence, and Video Contents on Positive Emotion Induction

Immersive technologies, such as Virtual Reality (VR), have great potential for enhancing users' emotions and wellbeing. However, how immersion, Virtual Environment contents, and sense of presence (SoP) influence emotional responses remains to be clarified to efficiently foster positive emotions. Consequently, a total of 26 participants (16 women, 10 men, 22.73 ± 2.69 years old) were exposed to 360-degree videos of natural and social contents on both a highly immersive Head-Mounted Display and a low immersive computer screen. Subjective emotional responses and SoP were assessed after each video using self-reports, while a wearable wristband collected continuously electrodermal activity and heart rate to record physiological emotional responses. Findings supported the added value of immersion, as more positive emotions and greater subjective arousal were reported after viewing the videos in the highly immersive setting, regardless of the video contents. In addition to usually employed natural contents, the findings also provide initial evidence for the effectiveness of social contents in eliciting positive emotions. Finally, structural equation models shed light on the indirect effect of immersion, through spatial and spatial SoP on subjective arousal. Overall, these are encouraging results about the effectiveness of VR for fostering positive emotions. Future studies should further investigate the influence of user characteristics on VR experiences to foster efficiently positive emotions among a broad range of potential users.

VR for Studying the Neuroscience of Emotional Responses

Emotions are frequently considered as the driving force of behavior, and psychopathology is often characterized by aberrant emotional responding. Emotional states are reflected on a cognitive-verbal, physiological-humoral, and motor-behavioral level but to date, human research lacks an experimental protocol for a comprehensive and ecologically valid characterization of such emotional states. Virtual reality (VR) might help to overcome this situation by allowing researchers to study mental processes and behavior in highly controlled but reality-like laboratory settings. In this chapter, we first elucidate the role of presence and immersion as requirements for eliciting emotional states in a virtual environment and discuss different VR methods for emotion induction. We then consider the organization of emotional states on a valence continuum (i.e., from negative to positive) and on this basis discuss the use of VR to study threat processing and avoidance as well as reward processing and approach behavior. Although the potential of VR has not been fully realized in laboratory and clinical settings yet, this technological tool can open up new avenues to better understand the neurobiological mechanisms of emotional responding in healthy and pathological conditions.

Exploring the Positive User Experience Possibilities Based on Product Emotion Theory: A Beverage Unmanned Retail Terminal Case

Since the last century, user experience has been regarded as a key concept in the process of product and service design. With the development of positive psychology, the transformation from negative to positive user experience has also taken place in the field of user experience; it emphasizes exploring the future possibility of positive user experience rather than just solving existing problems. Based on the research and analysis of existing literature, this study makes it clear that positive user experience research should be based on the “positive experience,” and arousing a positive emotion is conducive to improving positive user experience. On this basis, the product emotion theory is applied to the analysis process of “positive experience.” Through word frequency screening, thematic analysis, and correlation calculation, the relationship between product stimulus (object, activity, and identity) and user concern (goal, attitude, and standard) based on positive “user comments” is constructed, and positive user experience is understood from multiple levels. Based on the comment score, the positive user experience interval is divided in order to clarify the improvement direction. Finally, taking the “Angel Orange” unmanned retail terminal as an example, this study carried out an empirical analysis. As an exploratory study, this study can provide some insights into the quantitative research process of positive user experience design that evokes positive emotions from a user’s “positive experience” story.

Are You Awed Yet? How Virtual Reality Gives Us Awe and Goose Bumps

“Awe” is a category of emotion within the spectrum of self-transcendent experiences. Awe has wellness benefits, with feelings of social interconnectivity and increased life satisfaction. However, awe experiences remain rare in our everyday lives, and rarer in lab environments. We posit that Virtual Reality (VR) may help to make self-transcendent and potentially transformative experiences of awe more accessible to individuals. Here, we investigated how interactive VR as a positive technology may elicit awe, and how features of aesthetic beauty/scale, familiarity, and personalization (self-selection of travel destinations) may induce awe. In this mixed-methods study, participants used an interactive VR system to explore Earth from ground and orbit. We collected: introspective interviews and self-report questionnaires with participants’ experience of awe; information on personality traits and gender; and we recorded physiological goose bumps on the skin (using an arm-mounted goose bump camera instrument), which is a documented marker of an awe experience. Results showed that on a scale of 0–100 for self-reported awe, four different interactive VR environments yielded an average awe rating of 79.7, indicating that interactive VR can indeed induce awe. 43.8% of participants experienced goose bumps: awe ratings positively correlated with the occurrence of goose bumps with those who experienced goose bumps having showed significantly higher ratings of awe than those who did not. Most (64%) of the goose bumps occurred when participants self-selected their VR environment. Participant statements from the interviews were characteristic of an awe-inspiring experience, revealed themes of social connection, and usability problems with the VR interface. Personality traits yielded no clear correlation to awe ratings, and females appear to experience more goose bumps than males. In summary: (1) Interactive VR can elicit awe, especially within familiar, self-selected environments; (2) Physiological goose bumps can be recorded to provide reliable, non-intrusive indications of awe; (3) Care must be taken to design interaction interfaces that do not impede awe; and (4) While personality traits are not correlated to awe ratings, goose bumps were experienced more frequently among females. We aim to conduct future studies using custom VR environments, interfaces, and additional physiological measures to provide further insight into awe.