Understanding the Effects of Interaction on Emotional Experiences in VR

2026-03-02

AI Summary

This study addresses a critical gap in virtual reality (VR)–based emotion induction research, which has predominantly emphasized emotional intensity while overlooking the modulatory role of user interaction. The authors developed matched interactive and non-interactive VR emotional scenarios and systematically evaluated the impact of interaction on positive and negative affect across 84 participants, integrating subjective ratings with physiological measures such as heart rate and skin conductance response. For the first time within a unified dataset, they incorporated scenario-specific interactive designs, revealing that interaction not only amplifies emotional intensity but also dynamically modulates emotional experience in a context-dependent manner—facilitating coping strategies in negative contexts and enhancing pleasure in positive ones. These findings substantiate the contextual dependency of interaction’s regulatory effect on emotion, offering theoretical and methodological support for VR-based affective interventions.

Technology Category

• Humans and AI: Game Design — Virtual Humans, NPCs and Autonomous Characters
• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Social Cognition And Interaction
• Intelligent Robots: Human-Robot Interaction

Application Category

• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Practical large-scale studies of user experience
• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Web evaluation methodologies and metrics
• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy

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.

Problem

• virtual reality
• emotion elicitation
• interaction
• affective responses
• emotional experience

Innovation

• interactive VR
• emotion elicitation
• multimodal affective assessment
• context-aware interaction
• physiological signals