Following the virtual exhibit participants of both conditions had higher positive , and lower negative affect scores . We found that the virtual art exhibit increased positive affect and decreased negative affect in participants, suggesting an overall improvement in mood attributable to the virtual exhibit. This suggests that virtual exhibits may serve as a beneficial and accessible intervention to improve mood during a pandemic.This paper explores the positive impact of viewing a virtual art exhibit on mood during the COVID-19 Pandemic. During global lockdowns, depression, anxiety, and the burden of other mental illnesses have increased even among prior psychiatrically healthy individuals. Art and music-based interventions have shown to be effective clinical interventions in individuals with mental illness. The VisualEars project explored whether a virtual activity involving vision and auditory stimuli could improve positive and negative affect. Eight musical pieces were selected, and 28 visual artists from around the world visualized two musical pieces. A total of 56 works of art were created and hung in eight 3D virtual rooms. Visitors were randomly selected to either view the art exhibit without music (non-immersive) or view the art exhibit while listening to music (immersive). Visitors were asked to complete a positive and negative affect schedule (PANAS) in three languages  pre and post their virtual visit. A total of 160 participants completed baseline PANAS, 58 of which completed the follow-up PANAS. Linear mixed-effects models found that older participants had lower negative affect scores overall ( The COVID-19 pandemic declared on March 11th, 2020, had a devastating impact on people’s physical and mental health across the globe. Sars-COVID 2 generated an infectious disease that took the lives of millions and infected around 1.5 to 2 billion people globally . GovernmAccording to a study by the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction, only 22% of the surveyed population who showed symptoms of mental health issues received necessary treatment from March to December 2020 . NonetheThe visual arts’ positive benefits on mood and wellbeing have been used for centuries as powerful healing agents in many societies. Having visual works of art in early hospitals, churches and Buddhist shrines is believed to improve our wellbeing, and more specifically “bring about a change in consciousness and to promote healing and hope” . This hoThe implications of visual arts in our surroundings have been documented in both clinical and non-clinical settings . Within While the majority of the studies conducted on the arts assess its impact on human physiology and psychology within the clinical settings, there are several studies evaluating arts-based interventions to improve mental health and wellbeing in the non-clinical populations. These studies offer a promising potential for the future of research on how visual arts impact the general population. Within the general population, individuals who engaged with the arts for 100 or more hours annually had significantly higher mental wellbeing than others with less engagement . This arGiven these findings, the purpose of this study was to investigate whether a virtual arts platform would improve the mood of attendees during the COVID-19 pandemic. The primary hypothesis was that negative affective scores would decrease, and positive affective scores would increase following the attendance of a virtual art exhibit. The secondary hypothesis was that the addition of music to the art exhibit would elicit a greater decrease in negative emotion and a greater increase in positive emotion.The initial plan for this project in 2014 was an immersive experience where visitors could jointly observe visual arts in a gallery while listening to the corresponding pieces of music. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, this project was altered to align with the restrictions on people’s gatherings and public spaces, which proved to be a challenging task because of technological complexities and hurdles in creating a user-friendly yet realistic experience as well as visitors’ requirements to have stable internet connection and follow detailed instructions. Eight pieces of music were selected for the project and 28 artists were instructed to create visual works representing two out of the eight pieces of music. The artworks were shown in two formats, immersive and non-immersive. The two formats were identical except for the presentation of music in the immersive format.n = 28) were recruited for participation in the project from around the world through a referral basis and through searches on the Internet, online galleries, and museums. Each artist signed an informed consent form which included a description of the project, instructions, and additional information. Artists were selected from different countries  different education levels  and different musical background . Only one artist had synesthesia. The participating artists were asked to visualize two different musical pieces into two works of visual art, to translate what they hear into what can be seen. The musical pieces were selected among a pool of 100 pieces  from various cultures and genres specifically for their emotive characteristics. Out of the selection of eight pieces chosen for this study, the artists were each randomly assigned one musical piece as per the researcher’s discretion and then asked to select a second piece from the rest of the list of eight pieces provided to them.Artists  per work of art according to the CARFAC (Canadian Artists’ Representation) guidelines in Canada.The musical pieces selected from different musical cultures for this project were The positive and negative affects questionnaire (PANAS)  originalThe exhibition was designed in two formats (immersive and non-immersive) on Kunstmatrix platform which hosts virtual 3D exhibitions that allow the visitors to interact closely with the visual arts hung on the walls, simultaneously listen to the music selected by the curator, and navigate the space by clicking on directional arrows. The two formats of the exhibition consist of a non-immersive version where there were artworks on the walls while the immersive version also included the musical piece which the visual arts were based upon. Therefore, in each room of the immersive format, the piece of music based on which the works of art were created was playing while the visitors were viewing the works of art. Both immersive and non-immersive versions consisted of eight separate rooms which were linked and navigated by clicking on designated buttons. Each room was slightly different in terms of the color of the walls and the layout in order to give the visitors a realistic impression of a physical exhibition. The exhibition and the study were live for 4 weeks. The participants were only told that they would be visiting an art exhibit that featured 8 rooms, where there would be just the visual works of art or visual arts pieces and music playing in the rooms. However, upon clicking on the description of each artwork, participants would be informed that each work of art was a visualization of a musical piece with the title of the piece next to it. In addition, by using newly created art, there was zero chance that the participants would be viewing works with which they were familiar. Thus, the visual aspect of the project was all “new” to all participants and therefore a kind of neutralizer.It is noted that the designs of the immersive and non-immersive versions were identical therefore keeping music the only variable for the visitors. The rooms were to be visited consecutively and in one sitting through the instructions provided upon entering the first room and the same instructions offered in the first and last panels of each room. Rooms were chosen for each musical piece where the pieces of artwork were displayed that were made for that piece, therefore, there were eight rooms in total for the exhibition, the number of artworks in each room varies as some of the pieces were selected by more artists. There was one room that held only two artworks and there were a few rooms that held nine artworks.www.visualearsproject.com and invitations were sent out to the general public through emails and instagram posts.The exhibition was launched on a dedicated website, Participants were directed from the website to the study on Qualtrics through a link. The paradigm was designed on Qualtrics in three languages: English, French, and Farsi. Participants were asked to choose a language to complete the study and fill out an informed consent form. They were then directed to complete a pre-experience PANAS and follow by selecting their age range from three options of below 25, 25 to 50, and over 51. They were also asked to choose their gender from the categories male, female, and other.Only participants who appropriately indicated their consent were directed to complete the study, if participants indicated dissent, they were invited to visit the immersive version without participation in the study. After the completion of the PANAS scale, participants were directed to the first room of the exhibition and were randomly assigned to either the immersive condition  or to the non-immersive condition . Through the instructions, participants would enter room 1, and start from a panel that displayed the words “Start here.” They could click on the panel and then navigate the room by clicking to the artwork on their right side. In the immersive version, once the visitor clicked on the first panel, the music started playing and kept looping until they left the room. Each artwork came with the name of the artist, the piece of music which it was visualized upon, the price, the technique and size of the artwork, and the artist’s website. The visitors could zoom in on the artworks and manually navigate the room instead of using the right and left directive arrows on the page and leave for the next room by clicking on the link provided through the last panel in each room. Participants were asked to visit the exhibition and complete the relevant surveys in one sitting. In the last room, there was a panel through which participants were directed to take the post-experience PANAS once their visit was completed. The questionnaire was a duplicate of the first one followed by a question that asked visitors to describe their exhibition experience in one word.2 tests were conducted.Overall composite affective emotion scores were calculated for positive and negative affective mood from the PANAS in English, French, and Farsi by calculating the average from 10 sub-categories. The composite positive affective emotion score was calculated from the following sub-categories: Interested, Excited, Strong, Enthusiastic, Proud, Alert, Inspired, Determined, Attentive, and Active. The composite negative affective emotion score was calculated from the following sub-categories: Distressed, Upset, Guilty, Scared, Hostile, Irritable, Ashamed, Nervous, Jittery, and Afraid. If participants were missing more than two sub-category responses from the respective composite score the individual was dropped from analyses. To investigate whether demographics , or experimental group assignment had any effect on completion of the art exhibit and post PANAS χFor the primary hypothesis linear mixed effects models (LME) with mood , with (i) fixed effects of age, gender, music, and time ; (ii) random effects of intercept and slope of time by subject and (iii) a first order autoregressive covariance matrix  between time points. For the secondary hypothesis investigating moderators of the effect that attending a virtual art exhibit has on mood an additional fixed effect of the interaction between time with either age, gender, or music was included . Additional exploratory LME analyses for each sub-category within each composite affective score were conducted. To correct for multiple comparisons a false discovery rate (FDR) using the two-stage linear step-up procedure by n = 160) initially completed a pre-experience survey consisting of basic demographic information surrounding participants’ gender, age category, and language choice for completing surveys. Participants locations were widely spread across the world as shown in n = 80), or a control group, with significantly more individuals selecting the English version, than the Farsi or French; this distribution saw significant change between experimental and control groups from pre- vs. post- experience . Following the immersive art experience, participants  answered the post-experience survey. Participants attrition between pre- and post- survey varied by age, gender, and language (see 2(4) = 2.42, p = 0.66], age categories , choice of language , or group type .Participants , Upset , Guilty , Ashamed , Nervous , Afraid . Additionally, while age was not significantly associated with the composite positive affective emotion , Attentive . Male participants had a significantly lower composite score of positive affective emotion , and Hostile .The association of age and sex with PANAS scores are presented in b = 0.17, pFDR = 0.03; b = 0.43, pFDR = 0.03), and Inspired . Additionally, following the virtual art exhibit attendees had a lower composite score of negative affective emotion , and Jittery .The effect of attending a virtual art exhibit  on mood questionnaire scores are presented in b = −0.29, pFDR = 0.02). and its sub-category: Inspired  than older participants. Younger participants had a greater decrease in the composite negative affective score . and its sub-category: Hostile  and Irritable  than older participants. Neither the incorporation of music alongside the virtual art exhibit or gender were significant moderators of the effect of a virtual art exhibit on mood.The moderating effects of incorporating music into some participant’s virtual art exhibit, age and gender are presented in The goal of this novel research project was to find out the impact of a virtual art exhibition incorporating music and visual arts on the positive and negative affects of the general public during the COVID-19 pandemic. As in-person human interaction was limited, the pandemic took its toll on the mental wellbeing of millions around the globe, in particular, the general public and those without any known history of mental health challenges. A Dutch longitudinal study revealed that people without a mental illness showed a greater increase in symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic as opposed to those with a mental illness . AlthougThe exhibition in this study took place in two formats, one of which contained only visual works of art, and the other contained music and visual artworks. PANAS was utilized to evaluate the positive and negative affects of the audience anonymously before and after the virtual exhibition through a randomized and controlled experiment. The study ran for 4 weeks and was accessed by a widespread audience in three languages, English, French, and Farsi. The subjects were asked to rank their positive and negative affects on a scale from 1 to 5. Each format of the exhibition consisted of 8 rooms each of which hosted a number of artworks which were visualizations of a particular musical piece. The immersive format also featured the musical pieces in each room. The rooms were visited consecutively by the audience who were randomly assigned the immersive or the non-immersive format.This study demonstrated that a virtual art exhibition during the pandemic was able to increase the positive affect and decrease negative affect in a widespread audience. Furthermore, younger participants benefited more  than older participants. Given the technological aspect of participating in a virtual platform, it is possible that the greater benefit observed in younger participants may be attributed to higher technological fluency in this group. Research has demonstrated younger participants frequently and fluently use computers and other technology for various tasks in order to work, socialize, study, and etc. . NonetheInterestingly our study found that older participants had lower overall negative affect, including its subcategories of distress, upset, and nervousness. Older participants also reported being more alert and attentive which are subcategories of overall positive affect. Furthermore, Male-identifying subjects had a significantly lower overall positive affect and higher overall negative affect, including its subcategories of scared and hostility. A recent study by Although the initial hypothesis of the VisualEars project was that subjects visiting the rooms with music and visual artworks would show a greater increase in the positive affects and decrease in the negative affects relative to those visiting the rooms with the visual artworks only, music did not appear to impact the results. This contrasts with a study by Firstly, technical challenges could most likely account for the hindrances, limitations, and the lack of support for the hypothesis. This virtual art exhibit was made possible through connecting three different platforms: a dedicated website to the project as a means to introduce and begin the experiment, Qualtrics on which the consent forms and the questionnaires were held, and Kunstmatrix where the 3D exhibition was offered. Although every effort was made to make the experience as seamless as possible, it would be remiss to consider it an easy-to-navigate for all. For example, the instructions were given on navigating the exhibition for best audio results. Each room would open in a new tab, and the audience were advised to close the previous tab right after opening a new tab while moving from room to room. However, some visitors reported not reading the instructions and therefore, encountered instances when multiple musical pieces were playing simultaneously. They were also directed to use their computers, the Chrome browser, and headphones while visiting to allow for the best experience; however, there were anecdotes of participants visiting on their phones or listening to the music on speakers due to lack of access to a computer or a working headphone. Additionally, in order to create a smooth flow, the rooms were designed in a way that would not allow visitors to go back to a room, hence if a visitor accidentally closed their tab, they would have needed to start over and lose their initial consent form and questionnaire responses. Another obstacle was the bandwidth issues on some visitors’ end and some internal server interruptions which happened to Qualtrics and Kunstmatrix during the time the exhibition was live. These problems resulted in many visitors not being able to follow the rooms and finish their visit as designed and expected. Therefore, the result of the positive and negative affects scores are likely to be more favorable than the current outcome and it is desirable to conduct the study again applying other platforms or at a designated lab to prevent external obstacles. It would also be crucial to run this study on a larger pool of participants to examine the further implications as a means to temporarily enhance and regulate mood as an accessible tool for self-care.Secondly, unfamiliarity with the genres of the musical selections might have prevented some participants from connecting with the music. In addition, some participants with preference for more upbeat music might have not connected with the pieces employed in this study as all pieces were more reflective and contemplative in mood and tended to have slower tempos.Thirdly, the three pieces of music which featured vocals in Bulgarian, Spanish, and Azerbaijani languages may have caused an unintentional disconnect between the musical piece and the visual work of art and therefore preventing the immersive format to elicit better results in terms of mood regulation for the participants. There are two potential reasons here. (1) The artists if not fluent in the language of the music piece may have envisioned it differently. (2) If participants didn’t understand the language the piece was composed in, that may have impaired them connecting the art to music in the way the artist intended.A few suggestions are noted concerning future replications of this study. (1) There were instructions on the first panel of the exhibit on how to navigate each room from start to the end for a more seamless experience, but participants were free to navigate it the way they wanted as well using the zooming in and out option, and the arrows to navigate in different directions; however, the order of the works and rooms were fixed. This order was one which the designing author thought would be aesthetically pleasing. We acknowledge that it might have had a specific impact on the audience and we suggest that the order of the artworks randomly change for each participant in any future replications of this study. (2) The fact that the visitors chose to attend the art exhibit revealed their willingness and openness to engage in an artistic activity which happened to be a novel experience as well. These participants might have been more likely to have positive experiences from an art exhibit and therefore might not have represented the general public. We suggest further data collection about each participant’s level of engagement with artistic activities and the application of further scales such as In regard to the future opportunities, developing and expanding a dedicated smartphone and web application for this project can serve as a self-care tool for the majority of the general population, in particular adolescents and young people since significant improvement was observed in their age group. Furthermore, the results of this study warrant a study in clinical settings in Toronto such as CAMH, The Baycrest, The Alzheimer’s Society and other mental health organizations in order to evaluate this mood enhancing intervention for their clientele. Amidst the growing increase in mental health problems especially in more vulnerable and marginalized populations, such exhibitions can offer a glimmer of hope to help with mood enhancement and regulation as alternative and temporary interventions. Since the PANAS results showed significant changes in the positive and negative affects of the general population, VisualEars may also be an accessible intervention for addressing the sub-clinical increase in anxiety and stress due to COVID-19 and other similar crises.8Streaming links to musical pieces used in this study are found below. It is noted that the digital recordings of these pieces were used in the exhibit with the permission of the artists and producers.The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to privacy or ethical restrictions.The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by the REB York University. The patients/participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study. This study was approved by the Certificate #: STU 2021-044 .SH designed, conceived of the experiment, and created the online interface. KK and GM conducted statistical analysis. JD supervised the entire process. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.


The purpose of this study was to compare the variability in quality of life in the area of digital consumption among older adults in urban and rural China during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study proposed a low-cost mixed research method, and the methodology used a quantitative study of a large regional sample combined with a qualitative study of a small regional sample. Data for the large-scale area sample were obtained from the China family panel study (CFPS) dataset, and data for the small-scale regional sample were obtained from Nanjing, China. The quantitative analysis of the large-scale regional sample used the least squares regression analysis (OSL) and propensity score matching (PSM). The qualitative analysis of the small-scale regional sample used the selection optimization and compensation (SOC) model. The findings show that economic income is a direct driver of digital consumption. Digital consumption had a significant positive relationship with the quality of life for urban and rural older adults. In addition, the study established the semantic network relationships of the coping strategies of digital consumption of older adults and their drivers. Finally, the theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed in the context of other related studies. Throughout history, along with the evolution of social forms, economic development has passed through the agricultural and industrial eras. Nowadays, we are in the age of the information economy, with the integration, sharing, and increasing use of information technology in the digital economy. Especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, information and communication technology (ICT) has helped people establish new ways of living and consuming. Our grandparents experienced a shift from traditional consumption to digital consumption. Can their lives adapt to digital consumption? For the population quality of life survey, in the face of a large aging population and unbalanced development between urban and rural areas, it is particularly important to use a low-cost and efficient and accurate survey method. In particular, there is a need to consider the differences in culture, race, and faith in different countries. In this study, an empirical study was conducted on the elderly population in the Yangtze River Delta region of China. The study included a differentiated study on the quality of life for urban and rural older adults affected by digital consumption in a large-scale regional sample, and a study on the quality of life coping strategies for urban and rural older adults in a small-scale regional sample during the COVID-19 pandemic.Currently, ICT services have deeply changed people’s life patterns. The advantages of quickly communicating and instantly sharing information have brought great convenience to life services . At the In countries with large geographic areas and large populations, a large-scale survey of the quality of life for the population would be very costly in terms of time and money ,8. For eAccording to available studies, the proportion for quality of life studies on chronic noncommunicable diseases (CNCD) in the elderly population is more than 35%, covering topics such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia, and obesity . It can Although the use of the SF-12 evaluation tool will help to analyze the variability of older adults, it may hinder comparisons between samples with similar characteristics or needs, thus affecting the quality of the data analysis results . To remeOver the past decade, most studies on the quality of life for older adults in China have addressed self-rated health, daily activities, mental illness, and social intergenerational ,18,19,20As shown in The rest of this paper is structured as follows. Digital consumption, as a specific behavioral manifestation of participation in information and communication technology (ICT) services, satisfies the acquisition of material resources on one hand and compensates for the dependence on psychological resources on the other . HoweverFirst, digital consumption makes consumer behavior traceable by improving resource utilization and serving more needs through information and sharing . Second,Compared to Asian countries such as Japan, Korea, and India, China is a country that places the most emphasis on traditional family values and has vigorously promoted the community service centered aging in place model since the population has been aging . TherefoChanges in community services will change people’s consumption habits, as verified in Husain and Ashkanani’s study on the impact of changes in community activities during COVID-19 . TherefoSo far, the literature lacks a clear definition of the concept of quality of life. It has been stated that quality of life is the degree to which a person is satisfied with his or her living conditions ,33. FurtThis study, based on the SF-12 evaluation indicators, will discuss two dimensions for quality of life, which consists of a physical component summary (PCS) and mental component summary (MCS). The PCS measures the general health (GH), physical function (PF), role physical (RP), and body pain (BP). The MCS measures vitality (VT), social function (SF), role emotion (RE), and mental health (MH). The PCS and MCS will be used as predicted variables in the follow-up data analysis.Moreover, as Saha et al.  mentioneDuring the pre-pandemic period, many older adults reported feeling lonelier and more isolated than they normally would. Several studies have shown that this trend continued during the pandemic ,38,39. IWe have categorized the studies on quality of life for older adults during the two-year period of the current pandemic in both positive and negative terms, and the main findings of these studies are presented in Both the selective optimization with compensation (SOC) model and quality of life are methods for assessing the physical and psychological factors in older adults. The classical theory of SOC, proposed by Baltes , provideFor the assessment of quality of life in large samples, data analysis can only reflect the objective patterns. The SOC model provides a systematic way to observe and analyze the subjective feedback of older adults and the process of successful aging, and the SOC model can help to specify appropriate services for policy by explaining it to a small sample.To achieve the study objectives, this study consisted of a quantitative regional study with a large sample size and a qualitative study with a small sample size. The data for the large sample were obtained from the China Family Panel Study 2020 (CFPS), which is an open access demographic survey database. The survey data in CFPS contain data on a variety of topics including social, economic, demographic, educational, and health changes in China, and fully meets the sample requirements for this study. The data for the small sample were obtained from an offline field survey conducted by this research team, and all respondents were aware of and signed an informant statement. This section contains a detailed description of the study design, respondents, study site, measurement, data collection, data variables, and data analysis for both studies.The quantitative study design for the large-scale sample is shown in The CFPS 2020 data cover 14,960 urban and rural households in 635 villages across 162 counties in 25 provinces in China. The selected sample of older adults ranged in age from 60 to 80 years. The Yangtze River Delta region was chosen as the study site due to the rapid development of the digital economy in the Yangtze River Delta region of China in the last decade and the availability of a mature service system in the region. As shown in (1)Dependent variablesThe dependent variable was the quality of life (QoL), as measured by their performance on two scores: the physical component summary (PCS) and the mental component summary (MCS). The PCS was composed by GH, PF, RP, and BP. The MCS was composed by VT, SF, RE, and MH. Variables were measured using a five-point scale. (2)Independent variablesThe independent variable was digital consumption (DC), which consists of digital life services (DC1), digital life affairs (DC2), and digital life entertainment (DC3). The variables were measured using a dichotomous approach, and the criteria for the measurements are shown in (3)Control variablesThe control variables were economic income, social relationships, and living environment. Economic income consisted of the pension (PO) and financial support from children (FS). Social relationships consisted of group activities (GA) and interpersonal relations (IR). Living environment consisted of care support (CS) and facility convenience (FC). The variables were measured using a dichotomous approach, and the criteria for the measurements are shown in The CPFS 2020 survey was conducted over a two-year period and was collected using face-to-face interviews and self-administered surveys. A valid sample of 1276 was selected from the CPFS 2020 dataset for the Yangtze River Delta region. Among them, 660 were male and 616 were female. A total of 1056 were from urban samples and 220 from rural samples.The variables of digital consumption and quality of life in this study involved economics and sociology. The areas in which SPSS specializes include social sciences and economics . TherefoThe qualitative research design for a small-scale sample size is shown in The elderly participants were between 60 and 80 years of age. Nanjing was chosen as the study site because it is located in the Yangtze River Delta region and is the capital city of Jiangsu Province for small sample collection. Nanjing covers a rich range of digital economy services and has a more concentrated elderly population than Hangzhou and Shanghai. These conditions are well-suited for small-scale sample collection .In the qualitative study with a small sample size, as shown in Questionnaire interviews were conducted during April–May 2022 in five elderly communities and two nursing homes in urban and rural areas of Nanjing, China. Disinfection and quarantine were conducted before and after the interviews, and thermometers and hand-washing were used. Liquids were provided to check the quarantine status of objects from time to time. Finally, 400 valid samples were obtained.ATLAS.ti specializes in working with qualitative analysis texts . Since tIn the regression model, the variables were structured as follows: one dependent variable was quality of life (QoL), three independent variables were digital life services (DC1), digital life affairs (DC2) and digital life entertainment (DC3), and six control variables were pension (PO), financial support from children (FS), group activities (GA), interpersonal relationships (RI), care support (CS), and facility convenience (FC). The results of the OLS regression analysis are shown in The R² of the three regression models was close to 1, which indicates a good fit, as shown in p < 0.1) for the full sample and a more significant effect on older adults in rural areas. PO and FC had a significant positive effect on QoL (p < 0.05) and a greater degree of significant effect on older adults in rural areas. FS and CS both had a significant positive effect on QoL (p < 0.1) for the full sample and older adults in rural areas were more significantly affected by FS. GA and IR had a positive effect on QoL (p < 0.1) for the full sample, but not to a significant degree. According to the results shown in To address the possible omission of control variables and the model setting limitations of the OLS model, this section used the PSM method for analysis as a reference for robustness testing of the OLS model. The matching method used was nearest neighbor matching, and the sampling method was put-back sampling.t-test before matching for some variables was significant (p < 0.05), but the t-test after matching was not significant (p > 0.05), which further indicates a better matching effect.First, a sample matching mass balance test was conducted, and the results are shown in Next, to investigate whether there was a significant difference in the values of the outcome variables after successful matching, an ATT mean treatment effect analysis was conducted. The results are shown in An open-ended questionnaire interview was conducted with 400 elderly respondents in a small-scale sample in Nanjing, and the text description of the questionnaire is shown in The purpose of the open-ended questionnaire was to analyze how older adults coped with digital living services (DC1), digital living affairs (DC2), and digital living entertainment (DC3) during the pandemic. The small-scale sample was combed through ATLAS.ti, and the semantic network of the text was built by combining the selective optimization with the compensation (SOC) model. The concept of the SOC model consists of three main components, namely selection, optimization, and compensation. This section focuses on coding and classifying the results of the open-ended questionnaire according to the selection strategy, optimization strategy, and compensation strategy. For the construction of selection strategy coding, we defined the reasons for older adults to participate in digital consumption as selection strategies. For example, the expressions of older adults’ experiences with digital life services (DC1), digital life affairs (DC2), or digital life entertainment (DC3) related ground services would be categorized into selection strategies for digital consumption. For the construction of the optimization strategy coding, we defined the challenges for older adults in digital consumption with their expectations of digital consumption as the optimization strategy. For example, the older adults wanted to learn how to play a musical instrument on the Internet, but it required the older adults to overcome the hand–ear and screen delays, and this contradictory role of the relationship would be categorized into the optimization strategy of digital consumption. For the construction of the compensation strategy coding, we defined the representation of usability issues in digital consumption as the compensation strategy. For example, an older adult’s experience of pain relief through telemedicine would be categorized as an compensation strategy for digital consumption. Based on the above construction idea, the semantic network relationship of digital consumption for older adults is shown in The questionnaire statements of older adults showed that older adults encountered barriers to the digital divide in food procurement, digital payments, and transportation, which led to negative comments. Older adults of different ages and regions did not show significant differences in their evaluation of strategies.(1)Selection strategy in digital consumptionAs shown in “Although the range of movement is limited during a pandemic, we can use the online community system to get food provided by the government within one kilometer. We enjoy the better service at the same price.”Several other older adults similarly described their food procurement experiences. Notable among these was the great sensitivity of older adults to the price factor. This is consistent with the positive effect of pensions on the quality of life in the large-scale sample.Second, in the open-ended questionnaire, older adults also provided feedback on negative evaluations of digital consumption. The negative evaluations mainly stemmed from digital consumption media tools, and older adults preferred to use familiar digital products with interface styles. New interfaces and new interaction logics imply more cognitive burden and learning costs. Older adults possess technology acceptance, but once digital consumption behavior habits are created, it is difficult to change:“Since digitizing my medical records, I can document my diabetes process more visually and better help with treatment. Through a year of use, I have become very proficient in using medical mobile apps. But I am very concerned about the app’s failure because I have not tried other companies’ app offerings.”Thus, the selection strategy as the first stage strategy in the digital consumption behavior performed by older adults is the overall criterion for older adults to consider the cost and process of digital consumption. Engaging or not engaging in digital consumption may seem like a split-second decision, but it contains other logics that require further discussion and specific problematic manifestations of the older adults’ negative evaluations.(2)Optimization strategy in digital consumptionOptimization strategies for older adults are mainly influenced by resistance factors. As shown in “Presbyopia is so severe that I need to look at my cell phone far away from my eyes, but the distance is too far to operate it. When shopping online, too many items often make myself feel disoriented and dizzy.”While there were many negative comments from the digital divide, there was still positive expectation feedback such as:“When using map navigation, I often can’t distinguish directions in a short period of time. Since I use a navigation app with a vibration feature, whenever I need to turn at an intersection, I can receive the vibration feedback to help me turn in time. I hope that such vibration cues can be used in other scenarios.”Thus, the optimization strategy, as the second stage strategy in the digital consumption behavior performed by the elderly, is a proactive or reactive demand solution to the manifestation of the resistance problem. The ability to solve the resistance problem requires an in-depth discussion on the way to strengthen the capabilities of the elderly.(3)Compensation strategy in digital consumptionThe compensation strategy for older adults is an aging-appropriate strategy that targets improvements and enhancements in aging functions to help older adults close the gap in the digital divide. As shown in “The phone screen is too small and when learning online skills, I often use the auto-read aloud text feature to help me acquire knowledge by ear. Also, I don’t need to keep an eye on home security; the security system will sound an alarm when people walk through.”Compensatory strategies work not only with the older adults’ external information acquisition, but also with their internal knowledge acquisition. This is how some older adults described the process of enhancing their knowledge systems:“Before I was exposed to digital services, I never owned a piano to learn to play because of the cost of space. But now I can play the piano just through online education and electronic simulators, and I can even learn to play any of the playing instruments.”Thus, the compensation strategy serves as the final stage strategy in the digital consumption behavior performed by older adults. The biggest difference compared to the choice and optimization strategies was that older adults made fewer active judgments and increased their inclusiveness of physical and virtual environments. Accepting the reality of aging body functions and finding a new niche in digital consumption is a manifestation of successful aging.The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of digital consumption on the quality of life of older adults as well as explore the variability of this impact effect in urban areas and rural areas. In addition, we assessed the digital consumption coping strategies of older adults during the pandemic.To achieve the study objectives, we proposed an innovative research method of regional demographic characteristics and subjective evaluation for quality of life. The research method consists of a quantitative study with the large-scale sample and a qualitative study with the small-scale sample. The method aims to address the personnel consumption and time cost in quality of life evaluation research, especially in countries with a wide geospatial span. Multiple dimensional variables are taken for quantitative analysis studies for large-scale regional samples. At the same time, the selective optimization with the compensation (SOC) model was applied in qualitative analysis studies for small-scale regional samples. Among the results of this study, several findings are noteworthy in comparison with the existing studies.First, research in the large-scale regional sample found that older adults in rural areas are more likely to be affected by digital consumption, which changes their quality of life. This finding can be explained by the existing aspiration level theory, which indicates that the lower living conditions and expectations, the more likely they are to improve the evaluation for their quality of life . AdditioSecond, given that there are few studies on the regional attributes of quality of life for older adults in China. This study attempted to explore the urban and rural variability in the quality of life for older adults. The findings obtained from the large-scale quantitative research sample showed that digital consumption had a significant positive correlation on the quality of life for older adults in different regions. The economic income factor showed a significant positive effect on the quality of life for older adults in different regions. This suggests that the economic power of older adults is the direct driver of digital consumption and may be influenced by other dimensions such as policy and technology. No economic power was found that could be influenced by other dimensions to change the consumption behavior. This finding is inconsistent with the argument that the forms and drivers of consumption can be altered by new regulations and procedures .Third, financial and care giving support from children, according to the quantitative study data, did not have a significant impact on the quality of life of older adults in relation to digital consumption. This phenomenon can be explained by group moral theory, which holds that the traditional elderly moral ethic still exists in the elderly group, but changes in external environmental factors have led to a shift in the elderly ethic . It alsoFinally, the small-scale qualitative sample showed that the digital divide and technology acceptance were associated with negative ratings of the older adults’ digital consumption response strategies. Specifically, cognitive load, tolerance, and technology acceptance were more likely to create barriers to the digital consumption behaviors of older adults. This finding is consistent with the research by Giansanti and Veltro , which sThis study also has certain limitations. First, the study only delineated three dimensions of behavior regarding digital consumption; therefore, the generalizability of these findings may be limited. Future research should combine the consumption business stage and consumer life course stage dimensions to expand the influencing factors.Second, the propensity score matching method was applied in this study to the treatment effect of digital consumption on the quality of life. Because PSM matches are determined according to propensity scores, unsuccessful matching will delete part of the sample. Therefore, this approach requires a large sample size. Therefore, the generalizability of this method is not good for small regions and small samples. Future research should make use of different analysis methods to accommodate differences in sample sizes to establish a sound regional evaluation model of the quality of life.Finally, this study was limited by the regional action of the pandemic. The qualitative analysis in this study was conducted only in Nanjing, China, and the sample of the change area was dominated by respondents with higher material and educational levels, and the overall development level of Nanjing may be slightly higher than the average; therefore, the qualitative findings may not be applicable in extremely economically undeveloped areas. Meanwhile, the qualitative questionnaire in this study was dominated by descriptive questions and neglected to examine the implicit needs of the respondents. Future research should consider more disaggregated regional variation factors, establish criteria for classifying regional differences, and incorporate research methods designed to reflect the implicit needs of the older population.This study applied digital consumption variables to analyze the quality of life for older adults in different regions and an innovative mixed research method applicable to the elderly group was proposed. This contributes to the localization, regionalization, and differentiation of digital elderly service development. Although quantitative data studies cover a wide range of areas, they often ignore the huge geographical scope of China, and the geographical differences give rise to regional cultural, regional demographic characteristics, and regional environmental differences. The subjective evaluations of the elderly population in this study are summarized to compensate for the variability generated by geographic distance. Face-to-face service thinking in virtual space will be a future trend in the digital senior care industry. For example, many digital consumer applications in China differentiate between provincial and urban areas to provide more accurate services to clients . In the In terms of the theoretical implications, this study makes a partial contribution to the literature. First, in this study, we defined the scope of digital consumption from the perspective of the community service needs of older adults, bridging the gap between the older adults’ digital skills, digital interactions, and older adults’ needs perspectives. Existing indicators of quality of life for older adults have focused on Western societies, and quality of life is easily influenced by economic and geographical factors. Therefore, appropriate life evaluation improvement criteria should be developed for countries with strong economic and geographic characteristics.Furthermore, this study on digital consumption is one of the few regional studies conducted on economics and gerontology in China, specifically during an epidemic. After reviewing the literature and conducting an empirical study, a significant positive correlation of digital consumption with the quality of life of older adults in different regions was found. The digital divide was also found to produce negative subjective evaluations of the digital consumption response strategies of older adults. This finding helps to model the shift from the traditional consumption system to the digital consumption system from a geographical perspective.China’s growing elderly population has created a huge demand for senior care services, and all industries are undergoing digital transformation. The number of Internet users among China’s aging population is growing much faster than other age groups, and how to develop and increase consumption in the digital economy is a key concern for all aging countries and regions. Notably, this study provides a reference for dealing with the relationship between older people and digitalization. In particular, the cost of population research is considered, and lower operating costs will make the digital elderly service industry more competitive.


From the perspective of psychophysiological evaluation, this paper provides a theoretical reference for the lighting settings of museums. In order to study the impact of correlated color temperature (CCT) on visitors’ perception and preference in museum exhibitions, an experiment was conducted in the ergonomics laboratory of Nanjing Forestry University. We invited 50 participants to visit the virtual reality museum exhibitions with different CCTs, built by Autodesk 3D’s Max 2017. Specific psychophysiology variables—eye movement, electrodermal activity (EDA), and heart rate variability (HRV)—and the perception and preference of participants were collected. The results indicated that the association of CCT with eye movement, HRV, and some perceptual dimensions was significant. Under high illumination conditions with different CCTs, the pupil diameter and warmth decreased with the increase in CCT, but the comfort and pleasure scores increased first and then decreased. The CCT scenes sorted by LF/HF ratio from high to low were 4500 K, 6000 K, and 3000 K, which was consistent with the results of preference ranking. The LF/HF ratio showed significant sex differences and major discrepancies. Currently, the research focus of museum exhibition design has gradually shifted from the study of objects to the study of people. With the development of the cultural industry and the improvement of living standards, the number of visitors to the museum is increasing day by day, and their demand is rising for a better experience. The visitors’ experience is affected by many elements, and the lighting is one of the most important aspects of museum exhibition design. Most museum lighting studies focused on energy optimization and visual effect . Its comFrancesco Leccese et al. presented lighting arrangements with different lighting contrast ratios to observers in order to investigate the trends of personal preference. The results of the surveys pointed out that the observers preferred more uniform and relaxing lighting scenarios . Haiwen Kruithof proposed a graph based on the relationship between CCT and illuminance in indoor lighting design to describe a comfort zone with corresponding CCT and illuminance in 1941; that is, people would feel comfortable under the specific combination of CCT and illuminance, as shown in As for research methods, researchers have tried to use virtual reality technology, often used for environmental research, to simulate real museum exhibitions ,19,20. FThis paper aims to study the impact of CCT on visitors’ perception and preference in museum exhibitions, and we can more easily implement the experiment in the virtual reality environment. We will conduct a preliminary exploration of an exhibition, a unit in a museum, excluding the complex spatial factors in the real museum that are three-dimensional and complex with multiple exhibitions, so as to lay the foundation for future research. The difference between museum exhibitions and other art exhibitions is that there will be more cultural relics, especially in areas with rich history and culture. Therefore, we set up an exhibition with the theme of classical furniture as the experimental scene. We invited 50 participants to visit scenes with different CCTs and combined the psychophysiology variables and subjective evaluation of participants to explore the relationship between different CCTs of museum exhibitions and the visitors’ perception and preference. This study was designed to provide guidance for the lighting setting of museum exhibitions and focuses on participants’ psychophysiological variables that, to date, have not been studied in depth in virtual reality museum exhibitions.An experimental study was undertaken to explore participants’ perception and preference in museum exhibitions; subjective assessment and psychophysiological variables of participants were measured in the virtual reality museum exhibitions. Various analyses were performed on the collected data. Firstly, the participants’ subjective perception and preference of correlated color temperature (CCT) were analyzed according to the results of their subjective assessment. Then, psychophysiological variables recorded the impact of the CCT on participants’ eye movement data, electrodermal activity (EDA), and heart rate variability (HRV). Subsequently, an examination was made of the sex differences and major differences in CCT perception and preference, as well as possible design guidelines for the setting of CCT lighting in museum exhibitions.Fifty participants—30 females and 20 males—were recruited for this experiment. The participants were all university students, aged 20–30 years. Among them, 31 participants were science and engineering majors, and 19 were humanities and arts majors. There are four requirements for participants: 1. The corrected vision is normal. If the participants have myopia or astigmatism, they will need to wear glasses during the experiment. 2. Normal color vision; no color weakness or color blindness. 3. Do not take drinks or drugs that may affect mental state, such as alcoholic drinks, coffee, tea, cigarettes, tranquilizers, etc., within 24 h of the experiment. 4. Have enough rest before the experiment to ensure good condition .We used the “Color Vision Checklist” (Second Edition) to test the participants’ color vision. According to the instructions, the first 2–8 pages of the book can be used as a test to distinguish between normal and abnormal vision, and any three pages can be identified, i.e., the color vision is normal . All parThe location for the experiment was an ergonomics laboratory at Nanjing Forestry University. Participants were asked to wear a helmet-mounted eye tracker and physiological sensors to complete tasks. The eye tracker  allows researchers to run eye tracking studies in fully-controlled virtual environments, easily repeat research scenarios, and switch stimuli, all while keeping track of the participants’ gaze. The system has a sampling rate of 120 Hz and adopts advanced slip compensation technology, which can ensure the accuracy of data and the effectiveness of calibration. When the headwear module is offset, it allows the maximum degree of freedom without affecting the quality of eye movement data, and is suitable for most test groups, including glasses wearers. It supports 3D models as stimulation material and eye movement data acquisition and playback in Unity 3D. The physiological sensors  are the wearable ergonomics recorder; one measures electrodermal activity (EDA), the other photoplethysmography (PPG), and heart rate variability (HRV) data can be obtained from it.Three identical museum exhibitions with the theme of classical furniture were built by Autodesk 3D’s Max 2017. The lights were rendered in Unity 3D, where the CCT was set to 3000 K, 4500 K, and 6000 K, respectively, and the illumination was set to 6000 lm to ensure the visual brightness. In order to eliminate the interference of routes and ensure that participants can visit all exhibits, the exhibition adopts a single-line design. Participants can only visit the exhibition in clockwise or counterclockwise order. The exhibition environment of a virtual reality museum is shown in Each experimental session lasted about 40 min. The experimenter entered the basic information of the participants and helped them wear physiological sensors. Participants were asked to rest for 5 min to obtain psychophysiological variables in the resting state. Then help participants wear eye trackers. After eye-tracking calibration, participants were prompted to “be familiar with the operation in situ, the handle controls the position movement, and the body sense controls the direction. There is only one route. You can walk forward or backward freely to visit, and the visit ends when you return to the origin again”.The participants visited the virtual reality museum exhibition freely, and the data were recorded by the Ergolab through an eye tracker and sensors. The subjective evaluation scale was filled out after visiting. After visiting all exhibitions, participants were asked to complete the preference ranking and conduct a brief interview. During the whole experiment, one experimenter was responsible for the operation of devices and the platform, and another experimenter was responsible for guiding the participants.Psychophysiological variables were collected through the eye tracker and physiological sensors, which would allow us to measure indirectly the variations in states of emotion when visiting environments with different correlated color temperatures (CCTs).The main indexes recorded from the eye tracker were average pupil diameter, saccade frequency, and blink frequency, which were used to measure visual comfort and preferences. The electrodermal activity (EDA) sensor records electrodermal activity, which is dependent on variations of sweat secreted by eccrine sweat glands in the hypodermis, and measures responses of the autonomic nervous system to timely stimuli presented to the user. The PPG sensor records the blood volume pulse waveform . Heart rSubjective assessments are divided into two parts: a perception scale and a preference ranking. The perception scale is expanded to seven options based on the Likert scale, which allows participants to have a more detailed scoring space. The perception scale contains four dimensions: comfort and warmth are selected from visual perception, and pleasure and arousal from emotional perception. Comfort and warmth are commonly used in visual preference research. In the experiment of H-S Chen et al., the principle component analysis  was used to reduce the dimensions of visitors’ visual perception of light, and it was found that all dimensions can be summarized in two dimensions: comfort is related to colorful/dull, bright/dark, active/passive, and other dimensions; warmth is correlated with relaxation/tension and softness/hardness . PsycholAll data were imported into SPSS 25 for statistical analysis, where the original data of electrodermal activity (EDA) and PPG sensors are filtered on the Ergolab. Heart rate variability (HRV) was calculated from PPG data. EDA Time Domain SC data refer to the trend of individual SC signals changing with time under the stimulation of the external environment. SC will change according to individual differences and changes in the experimental environment; therefore, all values need to be analyzed in combination with the baseline to be meaningful. According to the formula for rate of change (ROC): ROC = (measured- baseline)/baseline, the mean value of the SC signal was analyzed. Normal distribution and homogeneity of variance were evaluated by a Shapiro–Wilk test and Levene’s test, and a corresponding one-way ANOVA test and Mood’s median test were conducted accordingly. The differences between different groups of sexes and majors were assessed using a chi-squared test .We carried out statistical analysis on the scores of the subjective evaluation scale in three virtual reality museum exhibitions. The subjective evaluation of each dimension was investigated by a Friedman test, respectively. We analyzed the frequency of CCT preference ranking data and assigned different weights. The most conventional method of assignment is to score the data in reverse: three points for the first place, two points for the second place, and one point for the third place. After processing the code, we obtained the results of the descriptive statistics.The experimental data are divided into two parts: psychophysiological variables and subjective assessment. The statistical analysis of the data produced the following results.The average levels of eye movement, electrodermal activity (EDA), and heart rate variability (HRV) of participants were obtained.p = 0.03), while LF/HF had borderline statistical significance (p = 0.05).The non-significance of some data was different from the expected assumptions that SC data was sensitive to feelings. Therefore, the key psychophysiological variables of eye movement, EDA, and HRV were taken as separate variables to perform a Friedman test on the data of different correlated color temperature (CCT) groups. The results were similar to those of Mood’s median test, except that the significance of the mean pupil diameter increased while the significance of LF/HF decreased slightly. Comprehensive test results showed that mean pupil diameter and minimum pupil diameter were significant  have statistical significance. Because the mean pupil diameter and minimum pupil diameter did not conform to the normal distribution, the percentile or median value would better reflect the data distribution trend than the mean value. We drew the mean pupil diameter and minimum pupil diameter of the participants into a boxplot, and the median of LF/HF into a line chart to observe the data distribution trend. It could be seen from Next, differences were examined based on the participants’ sex and major.The significant psychophysiological variables such as pupil diameter and LF/HF were weighted by case, and then CCT-sex and CCT-major were used as cross factors to obtain chi-square test results. The subjective evaluation scale was tested by a Friedman test according to sex and major, and the preference ranking was analyzed by frequency.The results of the cross-examination of CCT with sex and major are shown in From the perspective of the distribution range of data, the dispersion of LF/HF for male and female participants at different correlated color temperatures (CCT) was opposite. With the increase in CCT, the LF/HF ratio of male participants was first dispersed, then concentrated, and then dispersed. It was most concentrated at 4500 K CCT, then dispersed to both sides, and most dispersed at 6000 K CCT. Alternatively, the LF/HF ratio of female participants was first concentrated, then dispersed, and then concentrated with the increase of CCT, and the dispersion was maximum at 4500 K CCT, then focused on both sides, and focused most at 6000 K CCT. From the median trend, male and female participants at 3000 K and 4500 K CCTs were similar, showing an upward trend, but female participants’ LF/HF ratio was slightly higher than that of male participants. Female participants’ LF/HF ratio decreased significantly at 6000 K CCT, while the trend among male participants continued to rise.The dispersion of the LF/HF ratio of science and engineering participants showed a similar trend to that of female participants. With the increase of correlated color temperature (CCT), the LF/HF ratio first concentrated, then dispersed, and then concentrated. At 4500 K CCT, the dispersion was the largest and then concentrated on both sides. The LF/HF ratio of the humanities and arts participants showed a similar trend to that of the male participants. With the increase of the CCT, it was first dispersed, then concentrated, and then dispersed. It was most concentrated at 4500 K, then dispersed to both sides, and most dispersed at 6000 K. The science and engineering participants also showed a similar trend with female participants. The LF/HF ratio increased from 3000 K to 4500 K CCTs and then decreased from 4500 K to 6000 K CCTs. The LF/HF ratio of the humanities and arts participants changed very gently, first decreasing with the increase of CCT, then decreasing to its lowest point at 4500 K, and then gradually increasing.The results of the perception scale and preference ranking were analyzed.Taking into account that the variables do not meet the normality criterion, the perception scale was tested by a Friedman test, as shown in We constructed a line chart as shown in The cross-examination results of subjective evaluation are shown in It can be seen from Descriptive statistics of frequency analysis of preference ranking are shown in All the grouped participants by sex and major preferred 4500 K CCT, and the preference ranking results of male and female participants were consistent with those of the overall participants, in the order of 4500 K, 6000 K, and 3000 K. The preference ranking results of the science and engineering participants were also consistent with the overall results, but the humanities and arts participants preferred 3000 K CCT to 6000 K CCT.As shown in This paper aims to study the impact of correlated color temperature (CCT) on visitors’ perception and preference in virtual reality museum exhibitions that might improve the settings of museum lighting. We examined subjective assessment and psychophysiological variables of participants in museum exhibitions with different CCTs, such as perception, preference, eye movement, electrodermal activity (EDA), and heart rate variability (HRV). The guidelines will be based on both the subjective and psychophysiological responses of participants. The study findings make significant contributions at the methodological and results levels.In the results of subjective assessment, the warmth decreased with the increase in correlated color temperature (CCT), while the comfort, pleasure, and preference ranking scores increased first and then decreased. The trend of warmth verified previous studies that the feeling of cold and heat changes with the change of CCT . The incParticipants were most inclined to the scene with CCT at 4500 K, followed by 6000 K, and finally 3000 K. It is similar to some research in recent years, which found that the arrangement of supercooled or overheated lights was not popular with visitors, so visitors actually preferred the CCT range of about 4500 K. There were also many similar studies in other building spaces ,32. The The study measured three psychophysiological variables: eye movement, electrodermal activity (EDA), and heart rate variability (HRV) to explore participants’ correlated color temperature (CCT) perception and references, and the final results showed that EDA were not significantly different in scenes with different CCTs. As a common index of emotional arousal, EDA is rarely used in the research about CCT in the museum. Unfortunately, there was no significant correlation between EDA and CCT in our experiment. The possible reason is that the difference between our experimental stimuli is not enough to cause significant changes in EDA, while the HRV, which is also commonly used in emotional measurement, has an evident discrepancy in our study, which may indicate that the threshold of stimuli that can cause obvious changes in EDA is higher than that of the HRV. The adoption of eye-tracking was due to its role in the study of visual preference, which can reflect visual cognitive and psychological processes ,37. KaihAmong the indicators of HRV, LF/HF represents the energy ratio of low frequency and high frequency, reflecting the balance of sympathetic and parasympathetic nerves, and is related to the arousal level . In our There are significant sex differences in participants’ LF/HF ratio, which is consistent with past cognition that men and women often have different visual preferences ,40. HuanThe LF/HF ratios of participants from different majors were significantly different, which was hardly mentioned in previous studies. In our research results, the LF/HF ratios of humanities and arts participants and science and engineering participants had opposite trends; that is, the arousal level of humanities and arts participants was the lowest at 4500 K CCT, and the arousal level rose at low CCT and high CCT, but the change was relatively gentle. Science and engineering participants had the highest arousal level at 4500 K CCT, while the arousal level at low CCT and high CCT decreased, and science and engineering participants were more sensitive to changes in arousal level. However, in the comfort and preference ranking, the data trend of science and engineering participants was more gentle than that of humanities and arts participants. Therefore, in general, the change trend of the heart rate variability (HRV) index of science and engineering participants was opposite to that of humanities and arts participants, but the trend of subjective assessment was consistent with a small gap.For the experimental task, participants were allowed to visit the virtual reality museum exhibition and simulate the real museum exhibition experience, which not only makes the experiment simpler and easier to operate and realizes the research of the space environment in the limited experimental environment but also leaves enough time for the measurement of the participants’ psychophysiological variables in the same state. Among the psychophysiological variables measured in the experiment, HRV was highly sensitive, reflecting more information and highlighting the advantages of HRV in perception and preference research.Despite these findings, our study still has some limitations. First, the participants of this experiment were college students, and it is not clear whether the research results are applicable to other age groups or other occupational groups. Second, the virtual reality museum exhibition was built in our experiment, but it is not clear whether the experimental results are applicable to the real environment or which parts are applicable to the real environment. Third, in the experiment, the ambient temperature may affect the participants’ perception and preference of CCT. The results of this study contribute to the correlated color temperature (CCT) settings of light in museum exhibitions in the following aspects: We used virtual reality technology to study participants’ perception and preference of CCT in museum exhibitions by combining psychophysiological variables and subjective assessment. We verified participants’ preferences for neutral CCT under high illumination conditions and female participants’ preference for lower CCT. Moreover, we found the trend in the change of the LF/HF ratio was opposite for participants of different majors , but the trend in subjective assessment was similar. Science and engineering participants are more inclined to high CCT (6000 K) than humanities and arts participants. Our experimental results can provide some theoretical references for practitioners when setting the lighting parameters of museum exhibitions so as to improve the satisfaction of visitors. In most cases, on the basis of not damaging cultural relics, neutral CCT is an error-free choice. In addition, practitioners can make some more detailed adjustments to CCT according to the audience of the museum exhibition. For example, women account for the majority of visitors in some exhibitions, so the CCT can be set relatively low. Or in the science and technology exhibition, the CCT can be set higher according to the theme. Further exploration is needed for the underlying reasons or principles behind these findings. In future studies, in terms of experimental participants, we may refine the population classification and screening criteria, such as age, cultural background, familiarity with the operation of virtual reality technology, and understanding of the light environment or museum exhibition. In the aspect of an experimental environment, we may compare the difference between a virtual reality museum exhibition and a real museum exhibition experience and further explore the scientific feasibility of an environment experiment using virtual reality technology. We may consider the experimental variables, controlling possible interference factors such as room temperature, and adding illumination, color rendering index (CRI), lighting mode, or other parameters in future experiments so as to provide a more comprehensive contribution to the light environment setting of the museum exhibitions.


The neurosurgery of intracranial tumors is often complicated by the difficulty of distinguishing tumor center, infiltration area, and normal tissue. The current standard for intraoperative navigation is fluorescent diagnostics with a fluorescent agent. This approach can be further enhanced by measuring the Raman spectrum of the tissue, which would provide additional information on its composition even in the absence of fluorescence. However, for the Raman spectra to be immediately helpful for a neurosurgeon, they must be additionally processed. In this work, we analyzed the Raman spectra of human brain glioblastoma multiforme tissue samples obtained during the surgery and investigated several approaches to dimensionality reduction and data classificatin to distinguish different types of tissues. In our study two approaches to Raman spectra dimensionality reduction were approbated and as a result we formulated new technique combining both of them: feature filtering based on the selection of those shifts which correspond to the biochemical components providing the statistically significant differences between groups of examined tissues  and principal component analysis. We applied the support vector machine to classify tissues after dimensionality reduction of registered Raman spectra. The accuracy of the classification of malignant tissues (tumor edge and center) and normal ones using the principal component analysis alone was 83% with sensitivity of 96% and specificity of 44%. With a combined technique of dimensionality reduction we obtained 83% accuracy with 77% sensitivity and 92% specificity of tumor tissues classification. Brain tumors such as gliomas, and especially glioblastomas, are the hardest ones to determine the borders and surgically remove. Precise identification and total disposal of brain tumors are significant for radical removal while preserving the surrounding healthy tissue as much as possible. Studies, including our own, have shown that the content of 5-ALA-induced protoporphyrin IX (Pp IX) in glial brain tumors is a highly specific criterion for demarcating tumor boundaries, as well as determining the degree of its malignancy . Howeverin vitro and in vivo. The fast advances in recent decades in laser and fiber optic technologies, as well as in chemometrics and machine learning that help extract information hidden from direct perception, have led to translation of the technologies of Raman spectroscopy into clinical conditions  and from the normally appeared white matter. The purpose of this consideration was to detect spectral features characteristic of tumor tissues and tissues at the tumor border.Another less commonly used but powerful method is biochemical component analysis (BCA). In BCA, the Raman spectrum is considered by the contribution of several known biochemical components, such as proteins, lipids, nucleic acids, glycogen groups, etc. In work , the autIn this work, we also focused on comparing and, moreover, on the combination of these two approaches, namely, comparing such groups of Raman spectroscopy data dimensionality reduction methods as feature projection methods (which include PCA) and feature filtering methods .The studied material was obtained during routine surgical removal of intracranial tumors  at N.N. Burdenko National Medical Research Center of Neurosurgery. The samples were kept in saline at 4°C in a sealed tube for no more than three hours after removal. Before the Raman investigation, the material was removed from the tube and placed on a sterilized aluminum foil to remove the potential Raman spectrum of the substrate, where it was observed with the Raman probe. After this, the sample was put into an Eppendorf tube containing formalin and sent for histological investigation. As a result, the samples were separated into three groups: normal brain tissue (3 samples), tumor edge (3 samples), tumor center (4 samples). The localization was reported by the operating surgeon.Raman spectra were measured using a Raman spectrometer Raman-HR-TEC-785  under excitation with 785 nm laser radiation from Ramulaser™-785 laser source  delivered with a fiber-optic confocal probe Figure 1All measurements were conducted in a darkened room. Prior to measuring the Raman signal from each sample, the background signal was measured 5 times with 30 sec exposition, then averaged. Each sample was measured 5 times at various angles. Spectra where the measured signal exceeded 90% of the spectrometer dynamic range were excluded to avoid errors due to oversaturation. As a result, the total number of measurements was 14 for normal brain tissue, 15 for tumor edge and 19 for tumor center.-1. For each sample, the previously measured background spectra were averaged. This average background spectrum was subtracted from each Raman spectrum to remove the background illumination. Each spectrum was then smoothed to reduce noise using a Savitzky-Golay filter  from SavitzkyGolay.jl Julia language package. The resulting spectra were characterized by intense fluorescence signal, which was approximated as a sum of Morlet wavelets  in order to ensure optimal classification of the studied samples by tissue type. As mentioned in the introduction, dimensionality reduction methods fall into two broad classes: feature selection methods and feature projection methods. The feature selection method is designed to find a subset of initial features . Methods based on feature projection transform data from high-dimensional space to low-dimensional space, while new features are a combination of a number of old features. In our study, we tried both approaches and also used a combination of them.Among the feature selection methods, we chose not wrapping approaches, but filtering methods that use third-party estimates to assess the quality of selection. As such a metric, we chose the result of a test of statistical significance of differences between the studied types of tissues: the norm, the edge of the tumor and the center of the tumor. Based on the findings of the pathologist, our measurements were divided into three classes, including 14 measurements of normal-appearing brain tissue, 15 measurements of the margin of glioblastoma, and 19 measurements of the center of glioblastoma. Then, for each point of the spectrum, the value of the Fisher criterion was calculated. If it exceeded the critical value, we assumed that the given point of the spectrum was significant and left it for further consideration; otherwise, we discarded it from the data vector.Since one of the important advantages of feature selection methods over feature projection methods is the clarity of their result for the end user, the next step was to search for a match between the remaining features and the known peaks of biochemical components. As such a library of peaks, we used the work .This is one of the main ways to reduce the dimensionality of the data, losing the least amount of information. Invented by C. Pearson in 1901  and has We chose the support vector machine (SVM) as the classification method. This method belongs to the family of linear classifiers and can also be considered as a special case of Tikhonov regularization. Each data object is represented as a vector (point) in p-dimensional space. Each of these points belongs to only one of the considered classes. The question is whether the points can be separated by a hyperplane of dimension (p − 1). There can be many such hyperplanes, so it is believed that maximizing the gap between classes contributes to a more confident classification. If such a hyperplane exists, it is called an optimal separating hyperplane, and the corresponding linear classifier is called an optimal separating classifier. The linear classifier does not always give an optimal partition, so it is possible to move to a higher-dimensional space in order to obtain a separating hyperplane of a more complex shape in the original space . Such a The accuracy, sensitivity and specificity measures were used to evaluate the performance of the SVM classifier.As a result of feature filtering, statistically significant differences were found between the studied groups of tissues in a number of values of shifts in the Raman spectra. After that, a transition was made to summing the intensities within the remaining spectral ranges, which correspond to important biochemical components of healthy and tumor tissues 6.Analysis of changes in the amide bands showed ambiguous results Figure 3-1) showed a higher content cholesterol (-1). At the same time, for the C-N region of the protein (1097 cm-1), we see an increase in intensities in the tumor compared to the norm.Based on our data, we found a statistically significant decrease in the intensity at shifts corresponding to cholesterol for the tumor compared to the norm and for the tumor compared to the edge, while the edge in some cases .The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.


Although being banned or restricted in many countries since the early 1990s, large quantities of asbestos are still used or present in building materials all over the world and its removal or handling requires specific systems that limit exposure to airborne fibers The exposure to asbestos causes chronic diseases such as asbestosis and lung cancer with an incubation period of 20 to 50 years. Among the operators most exposed to contamination are those who handle and analyze the materials in laboratories. For this reason, our work focused on an innovative method for removing a filter unit from a laboratory extraction hood, in order to improve the safety conditions for the operators and the surrounding environment. The hood has a particular construction technology with a mechanism that allows the spraying of a special encapsulating liquid on the ULPA filters below the work-bench, which is capable of forming a film and blocking the fibers on the surface of the same filter. The fibers are irreversibly bounded and can no longer be released into the surrounding environment. The monitoring of activity highlighted the absence of asbestos fibers in the air after installation of the filter and workers feel safer performing their activities. The introduction of an innovative filtering system enhanced the safety of work activities involving asbestos exposure, moreover, the time spent on the hood’s maintenance and the risk perception of workers were improved. During the 20th century, particularly during and after the second World War, asbestos has been broadly used in many industries and the construction field for its physicochemical properties, such as its flexibility and resistance to traction and heat. Asbestos was also used in walls or around plumbing for insulation functions, to strengthen blocks of cement, or just as a cheap filler. Moreover, asbestos was extensively used for spraying on the underside of the roof in many industrial buildings, and therefore the release of fibers to the surroundings with natural wearing out is common. In a modern city, asbestos can also be found in places such as in the cellar, where steam pipes are insulated, in air conditioning sets, in storage or laundry rooms, in museums, theatres, restaurants, etc. ,2,3. WheHowever, occupational exposure is the most common form of asbestos exposure. In asbestos extraction and processing sites, workers were the most exposed to the inhalation of thin and long fibers dispersed in the air. Occupational and non-occupational asbestos exposures play a well-known role in determining asbestosis, pulmonary function decline, lung cancer, and mesothelioma ,12,13,14In Italy, as in other countries where asbestos-containing materials were totally banned, the occupational health risk could be derived only from exposure from licensed work activities related to asbestos elimination such as asbestos remediation, insulation removal and disposal, or from asbestos products not disposed of properly and that are present in landfills or contaminated places. At the same time, workers also involved in the characterization and chemical–physical analyses of asbestos-containing samples are exposed to the risk of contamination during daily operations in laboratories. There is a great need to improve measures for protecting operators and their surroundings, in particular during critical operations such as the removing and replacing of filter units of laboratory extraction hoods. In Italy, physicians with occupational expertise and the workers’ compensation authority (INAIL) centrally handle the surveillance activities in the workplaces, and collect and store data on exposed workers that are involved in activities entailing the risk of asbestos exposure.This paper reports on an innovative method for removing a filter unit from a laboratory extraction hood, to improve the safety conditions for the operators and the surrounding environment. The hood has been designed for the safe handling of supports and materials containing asbestos (both massive and in the form of airborne fibers deposited on the filters) as well as potentially toxic dust, ensuring the overall protection of both the operator and the environment not only in the phases of work activities but above all during the maintenance phase in which the change of the ULPA (Ultra Low Penetration Air) filter is performed. This phase is too often underestimated but presents evidence of the presence of critical and dangerous elements.The hood, protected by European patent n. EP 3 093 059 A1 , is repoSampling of the inorganic fibers was done by collecting air samples in triplicate with an air volume from 3000 to 3700 L. The obtained three samples were combined into a single representative sample. The sampling point in the laboratories was always the same and near their source.To quantify asbestos fibers, 10 mg of sampling dust was ground in isopropyl alcohol to obtain a size from 10 to 100 um. After alcohol evaporation, 5 mg of dust was suspended in 200 mL of 0.1% surfactant solution and filtered on a polycarbonate membrane with a 2 mm diameter and a porosity of 0.4–0.8 µm. All membranes prepared for analysis were attached to a glass slide by using acetone vapor (clarification); the filters used for SEM-EDS observation were glued onto the SEM aluminum pin stub by adhesive type. These last filters were also made conductive by carbon sputter coating prior to the SEM-EDS study. The third portion of 500 mg was dehydrated in a drying oven at 60 °C, in order to measure its dry weight, which was used to determine the concentration of fibers. Identification and quantification of inorganic fibers were carried out by SEM-EDS at 2000 magnification and, to minimize both time and costs, by observing a portion of the filter.The identification and quantification of inorganic fibers were carried out by a Scanning Electron Microscope  equipped with an Energy Dispersive Spectrometer  detector by Oxford Instruments, Tubney Woods, Abingdon, UK).Replacing a filter unit from a laboratory hood is a very delicate operation that requires extreme caution and suitable measures to protect the operator and the outer environment from possible contamination from hazardous substances that accumulate on the filter unit from the analyzed samples. However, in the presence of highly hazardous contaminated substances, such as the particles or fibers of asbestos or other contaminants and toxic materials, the protective methods adopted by an operator, for example gloves and masks, are often not sufficient to avert the risk of contamination. Suitable nebulized solutions such as formalin or peroxide, which are currently used to sterilize laboratory extraction hoods before removing or replacing filters, suppress possible contaminating microorganisms but have no effects on the previously mentioned asbestos fibers that can expose the operator to a high risk of developing cancer. In this study, we report the use of an especially designed laboratory filter unit that protects the environment and operators during the operations of replacing it.The effectiveness of using the new filtering system was assessed by periodically monitoring the air quality of the laboratory where the hood containing the new filter was installed and where the measurements are conducted .Based on the data obtained, it is possible to underline that the new filtering system does not allow the unwanted dispersion of asbestos fibers into the surrounding environment, whereas during previous monitoring, before the installation of the new filtering system, asbestos fibers were found in concentrations below 0.1 ff/L, particularly during filter replacement operation.Asbestos exposure has been a significant source of risk for Italian workers, because of the large use of asbestos and asbestos-containing materials. The Italian Registry of Malignant Mesothelioma (ReNaM) has documented a total of 27,356 reported cases of malignant mesothelioma in Italy from 1993 to 2015 [The removal of contaminated materials releases asbestos fibers into the air with high inhalation hazards both for the workers and for the occupants close to the worksite. The highest exposure levels occur during the re-packaging of asbestos containers, dry cutting of asbestos-containing products, and maintenance of the equipment. The workers use specific personal protective measures (PPE) to protect themselves, such as respiratory equipment, safety goggles, protective gloves, and coveralls; on the other hand, to avoid contamination and the spread of asbestos fibers into the environment the worksite should be under negative pressure. The dispersion of contaminants is related to emission, ventilation rate and air distribution. A recent study evaluated the choice of best practices to guarantee the best control of pressure differences and the air distribution inside an experimental site contaminated by asbestos. The results highlighted that a supply of recirculating air with a differential pressure of at least 10 Pa could be effective for safer work conditions .Bearing in mind that there is no evidence for a threshold for the carcinogenic effect of asbestos, the manipulation of asbestos-containing samples, or even of samples suspected to contain asbestos, should be conducted in the safest possible conditions, ensuring that workers are protected from asbestos exposure. The laboratories that are authorized to analyze asbestos or asbestos-containing materials have to ensure correct safety procedures in the handling of samples within the laboratory and must follow standardized and authorized operating protocols in suitably equipped rooms with decreasing pressure, local exhaust ventilation with filtration, and regular cleaning, as well as including special facilities for the decontamination of the environment. To guarantee maximum personnel safety, the laboratory must provide for a partitioning of the spaces, in order to isolate areas where the handling of asbestos or asbestos-containing samples occur. The laboratory activities related to the manipulation of asbestos-containing materials are to be carried out in suitable rooms equipped with absolute filter aspiration systems (hoods) adopting specific procedures to ensure maximum safety and decontamination actions in case of incidental events. Moreover, periodic environmental monitoring must be carried out for airborne asbestos fibers using both Optical Phase Contrast Microscopy (MOCF), and/or Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM).The greatest criticality that can involve a high risk of exposure in a laboratory is the replacement of the filtering group of the hood, as the fibers adhering to the filter can escape from the container box. This phase is too often underestimated and presents evident critical and hazardous elements, also according to Legislative Decree no. 81/08 .In this work, we highlighted the workers’ challenges during the analysis of contaminated materials and the numerous disadvantages of traditional systems during the process of replacement and regeneration of hood filters. We therefore proposed the use of an innovative filtering unit enclosed in a specifically designed hood where the filter is sprayed with an “encapsulating” liquid solution, which forms a film that is capable of blocking the fibers on the surface of the same filter before being removed. Once the solution is hardened, all the fibers present on the filter are irreversibly bound and can no longer be released into the surrounding environment. In the hood, an internal electric aspirator forces the air to pass first through the ULPA filters, to retain the hazardous substances, and then it is sent to the final HEPA filter to be evacuated. Through the integration of the hydraulic circuit into the hood structure, and its operation from the outside, the operator can avoid any kind of contact with the internal parts . The filtering group is contained in a special box equipped with two lifting jacks in order to position the unit to match the inclined frame placed under the worktop, guaranteeing a dynamic sealing and therefore ensuring that no material, both during the work phases and during the operation of changing filters, can escape from the bin that contains them.In the literature, a very recent study reported the development of a mechanistic model ) to estimate asbestos fiber exposure released during asbestos abatement processes, which is equipped with a library of safe working procedures specific for each environment . Models The results of the present study showed that the use of the solid solution improves work safety conditions, ultimately reducing occupational exposure to asbestos in laboratory settings. All the operators who have used this system feel better protected and carry out their functions with an increased peace of mind. Within the many actions proposed to enhance the security levels in managing asbestos-containing materials, this is a low-cost and easy method with respect to other solutions presented in the literature, such as the mobilization of chrysotile asbestos fibers on natural zeolite substrate, clinoptilolite, geopolimers , and vetAll the laboratories that used this system confirmed the total absence of asbestos fibers and airborne mineral fibers in the work environment following personal monitoring of exposed operators and environmental analyzes by SEM and/or MOCF, according to the analytical methods recommended by the specific legislation in force . Analysts felt fully satisfied and better protected in the workplace while handling asbestos-containing materials.The fundamental safety requirement concerning the “asbestos risk” in workplaces handling asbestos containing products or samples is fully satisfied with this proposed new system. The operators carry out their functions efficiently while also being protected during all crucial steps in the handling of samples that lead to a possible release of fibers into the environment. The solid film permanently fixes all the particles and fibers to the filter unit, and in general, any possible harmful substance coming from the analyzed sample present on the filter unit, preventing their release into the environment. Moreover, this system presents further advantages when compared to other systems such as lower noise; an easy removal of the filter, and a shorter time required for its replacement; reduction of laboratory interruption for replacement and maintenance operations; greater safety for operators and assistance staff. This could be considered as an implementation of the measures to prevent asbestos exposure in place during filter removal, as requested by Italian law (Legislative decree 81/08). Article 225 of Legislative Decree 81/08, regarding specific protection and prevention measures, establishes that the employer, on the basis of the activity and risk assessment, is required to ensure that the risk is either eliminated or reduced by replacing it with other agents or processes which, in the conditions of use, are not dangerous or are less hazardous for the health of workers.The traditional processes used in scientific laboratories involve time-consuming and complicated procedures for replacing hood filters with high costs and interruptions to normal operations. In our study, all laboratories involved described the new methodologies as safe, convenient, and easy to use.https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/e6/c7/08/ad0e7ecc0538cf/EP3093059A1.pdf. (accessed on 20 April 2022).EP 3 093 059 A1 Method for removing a filter unit from a laboratory extraction hood, relative filtering and safety removal kit, and laboratory extraction hood.