Guided Scenic Meditation

Introduction

Project Description

The "Guided Scenic Meditation" application served as both an undergraduate Honors Capstone and a Master's project in 2023 and 2024 respectively. Its purpose is to observe the effects of guided scenic meditation in a virtual reality environment on physiological stress. Additionally, it performs a platform comparison by deploying the same meditative experience and testing its effectiveness using a room-scale immersive environment and a desktop computer, as desktops ($400 - $1000) are far more affordable and widely available compared to room-scale immersive environments ($1 million+). Using each platform, twenty participants were asked to engage with this meditative application that simulates the sights, sounds, and smells of a forest environment.

The guided scenic meditation application running in a room-scale immersive environment with its accompanying user study set-up.

The guided scenic meditation application running on a desktop computer with its accompanying user study set-up.

How to Use

At launch, the application begins with a simple user interface presented in the form of a start menu. It informs the user how to begin the guided scenic meditation depending on their designated platform. If using the CAVE2, the room-scale display in question, the user must press the L1 button on the platform's main interaction method called the "wand" controller. If using the desktop, the user must press the left mouse button on a standard mouse. After doing so, the first of two voice-over meditation sessions begins. With a total length of ten minutes, if the user chooses to quit the experience, at any point, they can press the L2 button of the CAVE2 wand or click the scroll wheel of the standard mouse which will return them to the start menu.

Research Paper and Methodology

Research Paper

For more details regarding application development, user study methodology, platform differences, and objective and subjective results, the twenty-page-long Master's research paper is linked below:

Guided Scenic Meditation Research Paper

IRB Approval and User Studies

Due to the involvement of human subjects, it was vital that the study first be approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB). After the completion of the CITI Training courses "IPS For Researchers" and "Group 2. HSP, Social / Behavioral Research Investigators and Key Personnel" as well as the submission of a protocol, recruitment form, informed consent form, and additional documents, the study was successfully approved by the IRB on January 5th of 2023 (STUDY2022-1377).

The study consisted of two hour-long sessions hosted a week apart from one another that asked twenty participants - all of whom were university students that were 18 years or older - to engage with the same Unity-built, meditative application using two different platforms for comparison: the CAVE2 and a desktop computer. At the start, the platform designation was randomized. Before and after each session, the participants were asked to complete a subjectively perceived stress evaluation survey using Likert scales. In a similar fashion, the heart rate and blood pressure of the participants was recorded before and after each session using a lab-owned, general use Fitbit bracelet and a standard OMRON HEM-FL31 blood pressure monitor respectively.

The placement of all the materials needed for the user studies with CAVE2 designation.

Video

Asset Credits

Sounds

The voice-over for the first part of the guided scenic meditation - which lasts for three minutes of the ten minute runtime - originates from "Guided Imagery Meditation: Forest CHOC" and has been provided by the accredited hospital Children's Health of Orange County. The voice over for the second part - which lasts for the other seven minutes of the ten minute runtime - originates from "Guided Imagery - Walk Through Forest" as provided by the meditation channel Mindfully. Lastly, to enhance the forest simulation, a looping audio clip of chirping birds titled "Sunny Day" from SoundBible was added.

3D Models

The assets used to create the forest environment were all derived from the Unity Asset Store. The conifer tree models, which are distributed throughout the 1000 x 1000 meter terrain, come from "Conifers [BOTD]" by Forst. The various textures painted atop the terrain are the creation of A Dog's Life Software titled "Outdoor Ground Textures". To achieve the swaying grass blades and colorful flowers, the work of ALP called "Grass Flowers Pack Free" was used. To further populate the environment, the stones of SHUI861WY's "Rock Package" were scattered about. Lastly, to simulate a sunny day, a skybox was acquired from Avionx's "Skybox Series Free".