Effects of the Acoustic-Visual Indoor Environment on Relieving Mental Stress Based on Facial Electromyography and Micro-Expression Recognition

Abstract

People working and studying indoors for a long time can easily experience mental fatigue and stress. Virtual natural elements introduced into indoor environments can stimulate the human visual and auditory senses, thus relieving psychological stress. In this study, stress induction was achieved through noise playback, and the recovery effects on psychological stress of three set indoor environments, visual, auditory, and audio-visual, were investigated through changes in subjects’ facial expressions, electromyographic (EMG) signals, and subjective questionnaires. The experiment found that after stress induction through noise, the participants’ stress levels changed significantly. At this time, the subject scored low on the questionnaire, with electromyography readings higher than usual, and micro-expression recognition indicated negative emotions. After the restoration effects under the three working conditions of visual, auditory, and audio-visual combination, the average EMG values during the recovery period decreased from the baseline period (10 min after the subject acclimated to the environment), respectively. The results indicate that all three restoration conditions have the effect of relieving psychological stress, with the stress recovery effects of auditory and audio-visual conditions being superior to visual conditions. This study is of great significance for creating comfortable indoor environments and minimizing psychological pressure on indoor office workers.

Keywords

• facial electromyographic (EMG) signals
• facial micro-expression recognition
• stress recovery
• indoor environments
• stress induction