A large team lead by Jackson determined that languages vary in how they link emotions; their findings may be useful to people conducting research in different parts of the world, for example. The group studied 24 terms for emotions in thousands of spoken languages, and report that “Many human languages have words for emotions such as ‘anger’ and ‘fear,’ yet it is not clear whether these emotions have similar meanings across languages, or why their meanings might vary.
People in virtual reality environments regularly teleport from place to place and a team lead by Cherep studied how those movements should take place. The researchers report that “When teleporting, the user positions a marker in the virtual environment and is instantly transported without any self-motion cues. . . . [for the Cherep-lead study] Locomotion was accomplished via walking or 2 common implementations of the teleporting interface distinguished by the concordance between movement of the body and movement through the virtual environment.
Buruck lead a team that linked job control and chronic lower back pain (CLBP). Job control was described as including decision authority and skill discretion; it is reasonable to tie this definition to comfortable levels of control over the physical work environment, choices of where to work, and similar factors. Buruck and colleagues learned via a literature review and meta-analysis that “CLBP was significantly positively related to workload . . . and significantly negatively related to overall job control . . . decision authority . . . and two measures of social support. . .
Fondren, Swierk, and Putman investigated links between the colors we wear and how animals who see those colors behave; expanding the Fondren lead team’s findings to colors used among animals generally seems plausible. The research trio “tested whether human clothing color affects water anole [lizards] (Anolis aquaticus) behavior at a popular ecotourism destination in Costa Rica. . . .We examined whether clothing resembling the primary signaling color (orange) of water anoles increases number of anole sightings and ease of capture. Research teams . .
Browning and colleagues have determined that virtual nature experiences can have the same effects on mental health as “real” ones. The team reports that “Nature exposure in virtual reality (VR) can provide emotional well-being benefits for people who cannot access the outdoors. . . . [the researchers compared] the effects of 6 min of outdoor nature exposure with 6 min of exposure to a 360-degree VR nature video, which is recorded at the outdoor nature exposure location. Skin conductivity, restorativeness, and mood before and after exposure are measured.
Jung, Mood, and Nelson identified one of the reasons that users’ actual in-place experiences may not align with what other people anticipate they will be. The Jung-lead team determined that “when making predictions about others, people rely on their intuitive core representation of the experience (e.g., is the experience generally positive?) in lieu of a more complex representation that might also include countervailing aspects (e.g., is any of the experience negative?). . . . the overestimation bias is pervasive for a wide range of positive . . . and negative experiences. . . .
Quantifying effects
Wi-Fi information crucial
The cognitive science research is clear – using natural elements (for example, materials, sounds,
Many notable studies with useful findings were published during 2019. The most significant 87 of
