Editor’s Choice: Quantifying Human Experience in Architectural Spaces with Integrated Virtual Reality and Body Sensor Networks


Research led by Semiha Ergan, professor of computer science and engineering and civil and urban engineering at NYU Tandon, published in the Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering.

People spend more than 90% of their time indoors, making it essential to understand how the built environment can influence human experience and assess how the changes in architectural design features can impact this experience. … This study provides an integrated method that fuses virtual reality and noninvasive body area sensor networks (BSNs) to quantify human experience in architectural spaces. Using a set of biometric sensors, several physiological metrics such as skin conductance, brain activity, and heart rate were captured and examined while subjects were navigating and performing tasks in virtual environments (VEs). 

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