Yuxin Qi | Relaxing Space: A Multi-sensory Experience in Virtual Reality

 
This project integrates the physical reality with virtual reality to create a relaxing experience for people with scents involved. As more and more people feeling stressed and anxious, there is an increasing need for possible coping strategies. Virtual reality, a new technology that exposes people to a controlled and multi-sensory environment, can positively influence people’s emotional states, among which relaxation is also included. The sense of smell, on the other hand, differs from other forms of human perception by being closely tied to the emotional center of the brain. Therefore, there is a huge potential for the integration of virtual reality and scent to affect people’s emotions. This project’s objective is to generate a multi-sensory experience in Unity by incorporating multiple scents.
The Unity scene is an island setting with natural sounds of sea waves and birds. Since both the senses of smell and hearing are high-precision, the visuals decide to adopt a less-precision style (i.e., less realistic style) to relieve users from being overwhelmed by all these senses involved and also to let users be more focused on the sense of smell in particular. Apart from the island environment, the visual also include unexpected objects that pop up during users’ explorations and the corresponding scents will be emitted so that to make people feel more immersed in the environment. The scents are emitted through scent diffusers with Wi-Fi connections and are controlled through Node Red using MQTT. To speed up people’s reception of the scents, the project also uses fans for faster air circulation.
Through engaging users’ multiple senses, this project would like to go beyond traditional VR projects, which contain mere audiovisual elements. By creating a spatial-temporal space with both VR and smell, this project hopes to generate a higher sense of immersion and a greater change in emotional states.