Week 5: Post 2

    I messaged Vicki and asked if we could have a zoom meeting to further discuss my research. So yesterday we had the meeting and it wasn't even close to anything that I thought that we would be discussing. She completely changed the topic of what she was wanting to do research on. (This may be a bit long so I apologize). She listed out two different options that she was thinking about. 

    The first was basically where the user would have four different scenarios (one looking out of a window onto nature, one looking at a photograph of nature, one being a watercolor picture of nature, and one being an abstract art piece of nature). Why would you do this in VR when you can do it in real life? I hate to complain and be negative about things but this made no sense to me and wasn't even in the realm of what was originally proposed. I understand that this is her research that I am working on but I feel as though I haven't been directed at all. The second option that she suggested was to have a nature environment and the user would have different scenarios (one would be just looking around the environment and no movement, one where the user would be floated through the environment, and one where the user would be able to control their movements). This option seemed a little more doable in my opinion. I have already created two nature environments that could be used with this. But then the question turns to what exactly is this research focusing on? I thought that we were comparing restorative feelings in different environments but this type of project does not exactly fit into this category if we are just going to be using the same environment. So what exactly are we doing? 

     With this being said, the person who is over the REU, Evan, knows about my lab partner and I's dilemma. They are also Courtney's advisor so this is how they know this. So I am going to be having a meeting with them tomorrow to discuss these issues and what we can do moving forward. I am a little disappointed that I have to go over my supervisor's head to get some information as to what is going on and what I need to look forward to. This is also worrying me as I'm afraid that I won't have enough done by the end of the summer. I am hoping to at least have some form of a virtual environment complete though and potentially have participants ran through if it's possible.