Perceptional Study

It has been empirically shown that the current weather conditions directly influence the mood of people in clinical studies, psychological experiments and long-term observations. Although, the significance of the effect was limited in some studies, the correlation between mood and weather is part of one’s daily life. Furthermore, the overall disposition and mood of a person impact the visual processing as Bassoa et al have shown. In the context of virtual reality, it would be interesting to see whether a sunny sky is perceived differently than gloomy conditions.

Can the weather in a virtual environment noticeably affect or lift the mood of people? Does the perception of a viewer diverge even though the same scene is shown but only with different weather conditions and does this perceptional transition involve a change in the mood? To validate the assumption that virtual reality has similar effects on one’s mind than actual weather does, the previously explained implications are validated in reverse order. First, the experiments will try to manipulate the perception of the viewer in order to then bias the mood. Altogether, this study strives to validate that the previously created procedural sky evokes similar reactions in people then real weather would.

Design

To clarify the planned experiment, I will outline the contents in the following sections and describe the expectations, the population, the procedure and the metrics of the perceptional study.

The previously created procedural sky has to be adapted to integrate a picture showing any scene as displayed in Figure 3. Therefore, a texture of the scene shown in Figure 1 is mapped onto a plane created inside the skydome. The real sky is extracted from the picture producing an alpha map displayed in Figure 2 which is used in a shader program to isolate the relevant parts without the real sky from the texture. The saturation, contrast and brightness of the scene have to be adapted according to the illumination of the procedural sky.

Figure 1 Scene of a city used for the perceptional study

Figure 2 Alpha map for the part of the scene shown in Figure 1 that is used in the perceptional study

Hypothesis

Different conditions for clouds, the sky and the position of the sun are perceived differently by observers and thus, evoke different emotions or transitions in their mood. The correlation between the weather conditions and the mood is expected to be minor but yet present.

Target group

The target group of many perceptional experiments where students. To show that virtual reality triggers similar emotions in the subjects as the real weather a similar target group has to be chosen to be able to compare the results to existing studies.

Procedure

First, the subjects are assigned to one of three groups. Each of those groups will see exactly the same footage but answer the questions described in a latter section in a different order. There are supposed to be two videos lasting at least 5 minutes to have an effect on the viewers. The first video shows the scene with the procedurally generated sky in a sunny and overall cheerful setting which is supposed to give the subjects a joyous disposition. The second video captures the same scene but with a gloomy, stormy and cloudy sky. All participants are asked to envision what they would do in the scene they are shown. The first group acts as the reference group and answers questions on their mood before seeing any of the scenes. The second group is asked to fill out a questionnaire on their current mood after they have seen the video with the sunny sky and the third lot does the same after the dark setting. All participants are asked to answer questions covering their perception of the scene after each video.

Metrics

The following generic questions can be used to investigate the disposition of participants towards the scene. The order of the questions is important to diminish biased answers for follow-up inquiries.

Questions related to the mood

1. How would you describe your current mood on a scale from 0 (worst) to 10 (best)
2. What do you think is your general mood on average on a scale from 0 (worst) to 10 (best)?
3. How was your mood while envisioning to be in the scene shown before on a scale from 0 (worst) to 10 (best)?

Questions related to the perception

1. In which month could the previously seen scene have taken place?
2. Which outside temperature do you think there was?
3. How realistic did the scene appear to you on a scale from 0 (most unrealistic) to 10 (highly realistic)?

Material

In this experiment the subjects see a video captured from the procedural sky that was previously created. Additionally, a scene is embedded and the real sky is replaced with the virtual one. The following pictures are excerpts of a possible demonstration to illustrate the material. The pictures to the left show a more sunny scene whereas the other side could be perceived as gloomy and cloudy.

Figure 3 Different weather conditions for the skyline of a city

Expectations

• The group with the on average lowest measured mood should be the one that saw the dark scene, followed by the reference group that answered the questions on their mood before the experiment. The group with the overall highest results in the metrics for mood should be the one that saw the video with the cheerful setting before answering the questions. These transitions can be ascribed to the impact that the virtual reality has on the participants.

• The darker scene should be perceived as a cold setting in autumn and the brighter scene should be matched with spring or summer.

 

References

• Denissen, J.J.A.; Butalid, Ligaya; Penke, Lars; van Aken, Marcel A. G. (2008). The effects of weather on daily mood: A multilevel approach. Emotion, 8(5), 662-667
• Howarth, E. & Hoffman, M.S. (1984). A multidimensional approach to the relationship between mood and weather. British Journal of Psychology, 75(1), 15-23
• Sanders, J.L. & Brizzolara, M.S. (1982). Relationships between weather and mood. Journal of General Psychology, 107(1), 155-156
• Bassoa, M.R. et al (1996). Mood and global-local visual processing. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 2(3), 249-255