Indoor daylighting quality has impacts on occupants’ physical and psychological aspects. Although daylighting design metrics have strictly restricted the amount of sunlight penetration, studies have shown occupants’ preference towards an appropriate amount of sunlight and distributions. Currently, insufficient studies have focused on the composition of interior daylighting distributions. Therefore, this paper presents a laboratory experiment exploring the psychological influences of sunlight patterns under immersive virtual reality scenes. The sunlight patterns are created by a combination of nine aperture designs, two window sizes and two sky types. The experiment collects 41 valid architecture students’ assessments and their physiological responses. Degrees of eight adjectives, including pleasantness, calmness, interest, excitement, complexity, spaciousness, satisfaction with exterior view amount and brightness, are rated by the participants. Physiological data of heart rates and electroencephalogram are collected. According to the analysis, both the aperture designs and sky types have influences upon subjective responses. The large window enhances beta oscillations and beta power on the right prefrontal lobe area, and the clear sky attenuates the theta rhythm on the pre frontal lobe areas. These findings indicate the important influence of natural lightscape compositions created by aperture designs and sky types upon occupants’ psychological processes.

This study conducted research and discussion on the irrational layout of the corridor entry front room space in Chinese elderly facilities and proposed a design strategy for this spatial area. Based on a survey of elderly facilities and the general needs of the elderly, three design elements were added to the corridor front room space: windows, furnishings, and vertical greening. A model was built and eight different sets of pictures were generated; 28 subjects viewed the pictures according to their personal preferences while EEG data and subjective questionnaires were collected and analyzed. The results indicated that [Scene WF] was more popular among the elderly and that the demand for furnishings was higher among the elderly. The EEG results also showed that the energy in the frontal region of [Scene WF] was significantly higher than the other scenes. Significance was found between the AF3 and AF4 electrodes in the frontal region and the time and number of viewings (p < 0.01), as well as with subjective satisfaction (p < 0.01). These findings demonstrate that adding these three design elements to this space helped the elderly to have a more enjoyable experience, created a more pleasant and comfortable environment for the elderly, and improved the overall efficiency of the interior space. Additionally, the study provides valuable information for the design of future elderly facilities.