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======Research on the Effect of Images on Mood======

Made by: [[steve-wang|Steve Wang]]
====== Essay about destressing images ======

Stress is a big part of everyone's lives. Most people face stress. According to The American Institute of Stress, 33 percent of people feel extreme stress, 77percent of people experience stress that affects their physical health and, 73 percent of people have stress that impacts their mental health (3). This result shows us that stress affects most people and it is an issue that needs fixing. To make the satisfying images as good as possible, I believe these are the things that need to be researched. Colors, patterns, and, satisfying and addicting internet trends.

First, I want to know more about colors because we can display most colors that humans can see on a screen. So, if we can find out what particular shade, brightness, opacity, and many more factors determine color, we can easily help reduce stress. According to (1), blue and green are two great colors to improve mood. There are many types of blue and green. Finding the right type would be ideal and can improve the quality of our calming images by a lot.

Second, we should research patterns (repetitive shapes) because using code, we can use a lot of complex patterns that would not be possible to make manually. According to the same article by (1), repeating patterns are associated with positive psychological experiences, particularly relaxation. That is exactly what we want and we can also create many unique, different types of patterns every single time with code. There is a lot of potential here and it can be used to its full potential when combined with code.

Lastly, another thing that could be very useful is the 'oddly satisfying' trend on the internet. According to (2), they are usually videos of soap cutting, slime crunching, or frozen paint smashing. These videos have been quite popular on sites such as Instagram. Instagram has named Oddly Satisfying the fastest-growing Instagram niche in 2018 and Google has said that slime became the biggest DIY trend in 2017 causing a shortage of glue in the US. It has been recorded that on average at least one video of an Oddly satisfying hashtag is posted on Instagram every minute (2). From that, it can be concluded that they are quite popular and are in high demand. So, it could be useful to watch those videos and find out what is the satisfying part about the visuals in the videos. If the same feeling can be replicated, it might give people the same sense of calm and might also give them a sense of familiarity.

In conclusion, I believe researching color, patterns, and satisfying and addicting internet trends will allow us to create great images that destress people and will make them watch them for a long time so that they stay calm for as long as possible. Doing this will hopefully reduce the amount of mental and physical issues caused by stress. However, to do this well we will need to do a lot of research and many test subjects.

===== Citation =====

1. [[https://www.health.com/condition/stress/relaxing-images-to-destress|https://www.health.com/condition/stress/relaxing-images-to-destress]] 2. [[https://www.lemonade.com/blog/oddly-satisfying-videos-instagram-reddit/|https://www.lemonade.com/blog/oddly-satisfying-videos-instagram-reddit/]] 3. [[https://www.therecoveryvillage.com/mental-health/stress/stress-statistics/#:~:text=According%20to%20The%20American%20Institute,that%20impacts%20their%20mental%20health|https://www.therecoveryvillage.com/mental-health/stress/stress-statistics/#:~:text=According%20to%20The%20American%20Institute,that%20impacts%20their%20mental%20health]]

====== Second essay about destressing images and presentation ======

The World Health Organization has named stress the Health Epidemic of the 21st century because many people find themselves living in cities where there are very few natural fractals (Smith, 2020). To combat this health epidemic, we have to understand one of the greatest counters of stress, the fractal patterns, how it calms the mind, and how it can be made.

To put it simply, a fractal is a pattern in a pattern in another pattern (What is fractal?, 2016). The patterns repeat infinitely but keep getting smaller. Some examples include clouds, mountains, coastlines, cauliflowers and ferns (Challoner, 2010). Some examples of fractal patterns:

{{:plant-fractal-pettern-from-internet.jpg?400|}} 

//Plant fractal.// (Locke, 2016)

{{:munchingsquares-fractal-pattern-from-internet.jpg?400|}} 

//Square fractal.// (Vort, 2016) 

Before understanding how fractal patterns help with relaxation, it is essential to understand the term, fractal dimension. The fractal dimension is the index gauge of how complex or detailed a fractal pattern is (Wikipedia, 2022). For example, a smooth line has D(fractal dimension) of 1, whereas an area fills in a two-dimension region has D=2 (Salingaros, 2017). 

{{:fractal-dimensions-explanation-from-internet.png?400|}}

//Fractal dimensions explanation.// (Brotter121, 2019)

In a research done by Salingaros, it is recorded that humans respond best to "mid-range" fractals where D(fractal dimension) is between 1.3 and 1.5. In such fractal environments, the body automatically dampens its response to stress induced by intensive tasks and reaction to external forces. That implies that particular fractal environments are healing, or at least buffer us from stress. It does that by positively disturbing our homeostasis and generating positive feelings through cognitive response to symmetries and fractal structures. That is proven by studies done on human visual perception. Through that, it was revealed that humans prefer fractal landscapes and structures. They were especially comfortable with fractal images showing nature over non-fractal images such as non-fractal abstract art. In the article, it was also confirmed that the presence of dominant lines in the environment affects our physiological state. The same article also states that, the mathematical and not the biological content of the environment is responsible for our positive responds to fractals. Even though those effects are subconscious they can have a great effect on our mental state (Salingaros, 2017).

One of the ways to generate patterns is the l-system is a method to generate sentences using a set of rules. There are three important parts. The alphabet, axiom, and rules. The alphabet is the valid letters that are allowed to be used. So, in programming terms, you have defined these three letters and they can be used. The axiom is the starting letter of the system. So, it will be the first letter in the whole combination. The rules are the deciding factor of how the combination changes between generations. So, if the valid alphabets are A and B and the axiom which is the starting point is A. The rules are (A-> AB) (B->A). So, generation 0 will only be the axiom which is A. In generation 2 it will be AB because A has transformed in the AB. That transformation happened because of the (A-> AB) rule. For the second generation, it transformed into ABA because the A from the last generation has turned into AB and the B from the last generation has turned into A which results in the new generation becoming ABA (Harzallah, 2020). Below is everything that has been explained in picture form.

Alphabet: A B

Axiom: A

Rules (A->AB) (B->A)

{{:steve-l-system.png?400|Check l-system.png}}

//L-system explanation.// Idea from: (Harzallah, 2020)

Another system called the Mandelbrot set is also generated by iteration. Meaning to repeat a process over and over again. In mathematics, this process can be called the application of a mathematical function. It is essentially the quadratic polynomials function and has the form of f(x) =x^2+c. When using this function c should be a constant number. To use this function to generate fractals, we have to be constantly changing x. For example, if c is set to one, the output would be something like this: x=1^2+1=1, x=2^2+1=2, x=5^2+1=26. Only a few examples have been listed but x could increase indefinitely. This equation can create all kinds of patterns. For example, -0.65 and 0.2 create relatively fixed points. Another group of examples is, -1.6 and -1.85 give you mostly crazy outputs (Devaney, 2006).

{{:l-system-fractal-example-from-internet.png?400|}}

//L-system example.// (Nevit, 2013)

In conclusion, fractal patterns are great for relaxation and the l-system and the Mandelbrot are great ways to generate them. I believe that if the code for generating fractals can be tweaked so that the fractal dimension is between 1.3 and 1.5, and the fractals are using the correct colors, these "randomly" generated fractals will be able to help people relax. Also, they might be more satisfying than normal fractals because with code it can be truly infinite and different every single time. It could also be changed to fit the preferences of each person. After each generated fractal, it could be asked if the user thought this fractal was relaxing for them because each person is slightly different. If this tool is made well, it could help combat stress, the health epidemic of the 21st century.

{{:mandelbrot-set-fractal-example-from-internet.jpg?400|}}

//Mandelbrot set example.// (Beyer, n.d)

==== Citation =====
1. Smith, J., Rowland, C., Moslehi, S., Taylor, R., Lesjak, A., Lesjak, M., ... & Himes, J. (2020). Relaxing floors: Fractal fluency in the built environment. Nonlinear Dynamics, Psychology, and Life Sciences, 24(1), 127-141.

2. Challoner, J. (2010, October 18). How Mandelbrot’s fractals changed the world. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-11564766

3. Gdawiec, K. (2017). Fractal patterns from the dynamics of combined polynomial root finding methods. Nonlinear Dynamics, 90(4), 2457-2479.

4. Harzallah, H. (2020, November 7). L-systems: Draw your first Fractals. Medium. https://medium.com/@hhtun21/l-systems-draw-your-first-fractals-139ed0bfcac2

5. Wikipedia. (2022). Fractal dimension. In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fractal_dimension&oldid=1112430997

6. Salingaros, N. A. (2012). Fractal Art and Architecture Reduce Physiological Stress. 19.

7. Devaney, R. (2006). Unveiling the Mandelbrot set. Plus [Online].

8. Nevit. (2013). English: L-systems Fractal. Axiom: F++F++F Rule: F=F--F++F++F--F Angle: 60. Own work. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:L-system_tile_00.svg

9. Vort. (2016). English: Procedural texture obtained by computing the XOR (exclusive OR) function. own work. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:XOR_texture.png\

10. Locke, M. (2007). Natural patterns [Photo]. https://www.flickr.com/photos/mikex/342854258/

11. Brotter121. (2019). English: Illustration of surface fractality. Self affine surfaces (left) and surface profiles (right) showing increasing D_f. Own work. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wiki_df_figure.png

12. Beyer, W. (n.d.). English: Mandelbrot set. Initial image of a zoom sequence: Mandelbrot set with continuously colored environment. Own work. Retrieved November 16, 2022, from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mandel_zoom_00_mandelbrot_set.jpg

13. What is fractal? - Definition from WhatIs.com. (2016, August). WhatIs.Com. https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/fractal