Understanding the Effects of Interaction on Emotional Experiences in VR

TL;DR

The evaluation study shows that interaction not only amplifies emotions but modulates them in context, supporting coping in negative scenes and enhancing enjoyment in positive scenes, highlighting the potential of scene-tailored interaction for different applications.

Abstract

Virtual reality has been effectively used for eliciting emotions, yet most research focuses on the intensity of affective responses rather than on how interaction influences those experiences. To address this gap, we advance a validated VR emotion-elicitation dataset through two key extensions. First, we add a new high-arousal, high-valence scene and validate its effectiveness in a within-subject study (N=24). Second, we incorporate interactive elements into each scene, creating both interactive and non-interactive versions to examine the impact of interaction on emotional responses. We evaluate interaction through a multimodal approach combining subjective ratings and physiological signals to capture both conscious and unconscious affective responses. Our evaluation study (N=84) shows that interaction not only amplifies emotions but modulates them in context, supporting coping in negative scenes and enhancing enjoyment in positive scenes. These findings highlight the potential of scene-tailored interaction for different applications, where regulating emotions is as important as eliciting them.

Figures (16)

• Figure 1: Overview of the six VR scenes. Left: placement of the scenes within Russell’s valence–arousal circumplex model, covering all four quadrants (LAHV, HAHV, LALV, HALV). Right: panoramic views of the scenes with interactive objects highlighted in yellow.
• Figure 2: An example of the experimental setup for participant experiencing VR scenes.
• Figure 3: Study Protocol: Some study elements were conducted outside the VR environment (blue), while the main study components occurred within the VR environment to avoid breaking participants' immersion (orange).
• Figure 4: Illustrations of all emotional responses in the valence-arousal space. The x-axis represents valence, the y-axis represents arousal, and marker size represents dominance. Interactive and Non-Interactive results are from this study, Previous Study results from jiang2024immersive, and 360$\degree$ results from established datasets li2017publicschone2023library. The Surrounded by Elephants scene is not included in the Previous Study.
• Figure 5: SAM questionnaire results after experiencing each scene for valence, arousal, and dominance.