Effects of Immersive Media on Emotion and Memory: An Experiment Comparing Article, 360-video, and Virtual Reality

Fields such as immersive journalism and VR-based media consumption are expected to holistically engross users and have a deeper emotional impact as well as internalisation of information. This between-subjects experiment (N = 87) employs a 360-degree video was presented either on mobile VR, on screen, or as a written article consisting of the transcript and video stills. The results suggest that the higher immersiveness has a more prominent effect on the emotional response and higher negative affect to predict lower cued recall memory of the presented content. Age in the range does not seem to influence the strength of the affect change but females might experience a higher change than males. This study suggest caution when creating highly emotional content. The negative emotional experience might impede memory of factual information. These implications are further applicable to other related fields, such as education and simulation trainings.