Comparing Physiological and Emotional Effects of Happy and Sad Virtual Environments Experienced in Video and Virtual Reality

Y. Zhu , A. Dey

VR Workshops

Immersive media are increasingly used to evoke emotion, but does immersion actually change the response? In this within-subjects experiment, participants experienced happy and sad content both as flat video and in VR while the study collected heart rate, PANAS, and Self-Assessment Manikin ratings. VR triggered stronger emotions and higher heart rate than video, suggesting immersion meaningfully amplifies emotional and physiological responses.

@inproceedings{zhu2022,
  author    = {Y. Zhu and A. Dey},
  title     = {Comparing Physiological and Emotional Effects of Happy and Sad Virtual Environments Experienced in Video and Virtual Reality},
  booktitle = {VR Workshops},
  pages     = {848-849},
  doi       = {10.1109/VRW55335.2022.00275},
  year      = {2022}
}