Immersive Experience and Climate Change Monitoring in Digital Landscapes: Evidence from Somatosensory Sense and Comfort

Zhengsong Lin, Ziqian Yang and Xinyue Ye ()
Additional contact information
Zhengsong Lin: Virtual Landscape Design Lab, School of Art and Design, Wuhan Institute of Technology, Wuhan 430205, China
Ziqian Yang: Virtual Landscape Design Lab, School of Art and Design, Wuhan Institute of Technology, Wuhan 430205, China
Xinyue Ye: Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning, Center for Geospatial Sciences, Applications and Technology, TAMIDS Design and Analytics Lab for Urban Artificial Intelligence, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77840, USA

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 4, 1-21

Abstract: In this study, the virtual engine software (Unity 2019, Unity Software Inc., San Francisco, California, the U.S.) was used to generate a digital landscape model, forming a virtual immersive environment. Through field investigation and emotional preference experiments, the ancient tree ecological area and the sunlight-exposed area were respectively monitored, and the somatosensory comfort evaluation model was established. The subjects showed the highest degree of interest in the ancient tree ecological area after landscape roaming experience, and the mean variance in SC fluctuation was 13.23% in experiments. The subjects were in a low arousal state and had a significant degree of interest in the digital landscape roaming scene, and there was a significant correlation between positive emotion, somatosensory comfort and the Rating of Perceived Exertion index; moreover, the somatosensory comfort of the ancient tree ecological area was higher than that of the sunlight-exposed area. Meanwhile, it was found that somatosensory comfort level can effectively distinguish the comfort level between the ancient tree ecological area and the sunlight-exposed area, which provides an important basis for monitoring extreme heat. This study concludes that, in terms of the goal of harmonious coexistence between human and nature, the evaluation model of somatosensory comfort can contribute to reducing people’s adverse views on extreme weather conditions.

Keywords: digital landscape; emotional preference; somatosensor comfort; ancient tree ecological area (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/4/3332/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/4/3332/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:20:y:2023:i:4:p:3332-:d:1068031

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().