Effects of object colour stimuli on human brain activities and subjective feelings in physical environment and virtual reality

This work explores the potential of Virtual Reality (VR) as a medium to support emotional positivity and well-being. In this study, we investigate and compare the effects of colour first in a physical test room and then in an identical VR environment. We measured ten participants’ physiological responses to different colours of light in both physical and virtual environment with the assistance of an electroencephalogram (EEG) system. We also required all those participants to report on their subjective feelings through a Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) questionnaire. In conclusion, our experimental results indicate that human’s subjective experience of emotion and brain activity are affected by the coloured-lightning conditions, and the impacts show different trends between red and blue lightning. Furthermore, such impacts in the physical environment can be generally replicated in VR.