The Effects of Narrativized Interfaces on Emotional Arousal, Aesthetic Experience, and Pleasure in VR Rhythm Games

Virtual Reality (VR) rhythm games create an immersive experience through the multisensory alignment of music, visuals, and movement. Within this context, narrativized interface design has emerged as a key approach to enhancing user experience. Although narrativized interfaces are increasingly used, their effects on emotional arousal, aesthetic experience, and pleasure, as well as the interrelations among these dimensions, remain underexplored. To address this issue, this study compared narrativized and non-narrativized interfaces in a VR rhythm game using a within-subject design. Data were collected from 42 participants through subjective scales, functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), and semi-structured interviews. The findings show that narrativized interfaces enhance emotional arousal and aesthetic experience. Further, pleasure is more closely tied to the joint increase of these two dimensions, with aesthetic experience acting as the more proximal driver. These results offer new insights into VR interface design and demonstrate how narrativized interfaces can enhance user experience without altering core task mechanics.