Experimental Setup for Measuring Relaxation from EEG Signals during Immersion in VR Environments

Abstract

According to the Global Organization for Stress, 80 percent of people are stressed at work and according to the American Institute of Stress, stress causes 48 percent of people to have difficulty sleeping. Relaxation reduces stress, depression, and anxiety. Electroencephalography (EEG) is used by scientists to analyze the brainwave signals that explore the emotions and the cognitive processes of the brain. In recent years, Virtual reality (VR) technology has drawn lots of attention. Thus, the use of VR as a technique of relaxation is being investigated for assisting students and workers in achieving the relaxation to help them focus on their studies and work. This work aims to design an experimental setup for acquiring the EEG signals to analyze the characteristic frequency bands of the brainwave related to relaxation, when the subject is immersed in a VR environment. Different metrics, calculated from captured brain wave signals, are analyzed, compared, and discussed in this paper.