Understanding the Effects of Interaction on Emotional Experiences in VR
Zheyuan Kuang, Tinghui Li, Weiwei Jiang, Sven Mayer, Flora Salim, Benjamin Tag, Anusha Withana, Zhanna Sarsenbayeva

TL;DR
This study investigates how interaction within VR environments affects emotional experiences, revealing that interaction can amplify and modulate emotions, with implications for emotion regulation and application-specific design.
Contribution
We extend a VR emotion dataset by adding high-arousal scenes and systematically examine how interaction influences emotional responses using multimodal measures.
Findings
Interaction amplifies emotional intensity.
Interaction modulates emotions based on scene context.
Interaction supports emotion regulation and enhances enjoyment.
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…
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Taxonomy
TopicsEmotion and Mood Recognition · Virtual Reality Applications and Impacts · Social Robot Interaction and HRI
