Hypothesis
Varying visual openness to the sky would produce a measurable neurophysiological comfort response after a thermal stressor.
What failed
The primary analysis found no significant main effect of sky view factor on EEG alpha power (F(2,38) = 1.89, p = 0.165) and heart rate did not change from baseline to the stressor (t(40) = 0.40, p = 0.694); only a marginal difference between high and medium sky view factor survived (p = 0.065).
Broken assumption
Sky view factor on its own drives a detectable physiological comfort signal.
Why
The authors argue sky view factor co-varies with microclimatic factors such as solar radiation in a composite environment, and that larger samples are needed to pursue the trend.
From the published paper: Fan et al. Scientific Reports, 2026. ↗CC BY