The EmojiGrid as an Immersive Self-report Tool for the Affective Assessment of 360 VR Videos

Immersive 360° VR systems are increasingly used in entertainment, marketing and design and development processes. Many of these applications involve emotional experiences. Since momentary emotions significantly determine a user’s response and decisions, it is essential to understand the influence of media content and technological factors on the user’s emotional response. To measure the emotional responses to immersive VR experiences, efficient and validated instruments are required. Most tools currently used to measure the emotional response of users compromise the immersive experience since they are cognitively demanding, time consuming, and their application requires the user to leave the VR. We investigated the validity of an immersive, efficient and intuitive EmojiGrid graphical self-report tool for the assessment of emotions evoked by 360º VR videos. Using the EmojiGrid, 40 participants rated 62 360º VR videos from a validated public database. The resulting mean valence and arousal values agree with the corresponding values provided with the database (obtained with an alternative validated rating tool). We conclude that the EmojiGrid is a valid self-report tool for the assessment of VR-evoked emotions