Perceptual Responses to Narrow Spaces: Comparing Real and Immersive Virtual Environments

This study examined whether immersive virtual reality (VR) can reproduce the perceptual experience of lighting in a narrow, enclosed, and windowless corridor. While previous research has focused on open or daylit spaces, only limited work has investigated perceptual similarities in artificially lit environments, particularly in spatially enclosed settings. In this study, a real basement corridor was geometrically and photometrically replicated in VR to evaluate the realism achievable in a narrow, non-daylit space. Participants assessed lighting qualities, spatial characteristics, and the visibility of a small critical object using 5-point semantic-differential type scale in real and virtual environments. The findings show that VR reproduced general ambient-lighting conditions well, showing high similarity in perceived lighting level, lighting uniformity, shadows, and perceived width and length. However, the perceived colour of light, the perceived lighting uniformity and the visibility of a critical object showed noticeable discrepancies in VR, particularly general ambient-lighting conditions with spotlights. These differences reflect current limitations in VR display resolution affecting the discrimination of small details, luminance range, depth perception and accurate lighting-colour representation. Overall, the results demonstrate both the capabilities and the limitations of immersive VR for achieving perceptual realism in enclosed spaces. VR is a promising tool for assessing general lighting conditions and spatial impressions but remains insufficient for applications requiring fine-detail discrimination, such as detecting small targets, or evaluating intensity variation of shadows or lighting-colour accuracy.