Evaluating interior lighting as an indoor environmental quality component using virtual reality

Recent advancements in Virtual Reality (VR) in investigating indoor environmental quality (IEQ) research have established a critical approach to evaluate the impact of four environmental domains, such as indoor lighting, thermal comfort, air quality, and acoustic, on user experience and built environment performance. IEQ refers to the overall quality of the indoor environment as experienced by occupants. Virtual Reality (VR) as a powerful methodological tool for IEQ allows precise, repeatable manipulation of environmental variables in fully controlled immersive settings. These analyses, although informative, do not facilitate the comparison of the consequences of multiple design elements. Grounded in environmental theoretical frameworks, this research examines how VR facilitates replicable manipulation of environmental parameters while preserving perceptual realism. A structured search of Scopus, Web of Science, ScienceDirect, and Google Scholar (2010–2025) identified 35 studies meeting predefined inclusion criteria on VR, interior lighting, and IEQ. Findings demonstrate that lighting simulations in a VR setting reliably reproduce effectiveness, productivity, performance, and behavioral responses observed in physical environments, validating VR as an ecologically credible platform for design and occupant research. Results typically show that higher illuminance levels (ILL) and specific correlated color temperature (CCT) have a significant interaction effect on attention. Despite rapid progress, VR-based IEQ research is constrained by limitations like sampling error, diversity, and transferability of the findings to real-world settings. The study concludes that VR-based IEQ research not only enhances experimental precision but also expands theoretical insight into human–environment interaction and offers a transformative path for design studies.