Design of an Emotion-Aware Painting Application With an Interactional Approach for Virtual Reality

Virtual reality (VR) painting applications have been applied to psychological interventions for improving mental health and well-being successfully. However, it has not been sufficiently investigated which interaction type of painting applications can directly affect one’s artistic expression, particularly associated with the state of emotional awareness. In this work, we seek to evaluate how combining texture images with the brush patterns can affect one’s emotional awareness and help with emotional self-awareness. We empirically tested the comparative effects of two different types of interactions to search for texture images: (1) search using emotional keywords, and (2) search without keyword guidance. The interactions involving search guidance with core universal emotion keywords received positive feedback for enhancing emotional self-awareness.