Emotional Responses to Multisensory Environmental Stimuli

By Eliane Schreuder, Jan B. F. van Erp, Alexander Toet, Victor L. Kallen. 2016

199 citations recorded by the source corpus.

How we perceive our environment affects the way we feel and behave. The impressions of our ambient environment are influenced by its entire spectrum of physical characteristics (e.g., luminosity, sound, scents, temperature) in a dynamic and interactive way. The ability to manipulate the sensory aspects of an environment such that people feel comfortable or exhibit a desired behavior is gaining interest and social relevance. Although much is known about the sensory effects of individual environmental characteristics, their combined effects are not a priori evident due to a wide range of non-linear interactions in the processing of sensory cues. As a result, it is currently not known how different environmental characteristics should be combined to effectively induce desired emotional and behavioral effects. To gain more insight into this matter, we performed a literature review on the emotional effects of multisensory stimulation. Although we found some interesting mechanisms, the outcome also reveals that empirical evidence is still scarce and haphazard. To stimulate further discussion and research, we propose a conceptual framework that describes how environmental interventions are likely to affect human emotional responses. This framework leads to some critical research questions that suggest opportunities for further investigation.

Subfields: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Sensory Systems, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/31c155a1f077ed39b5ec28d06e809d45ad9c4b7d