Motion sickness, in addition to its persistent long-term effects, also exhibits short-term effects characterized as transient physiological discomfort, which changes rapidly with variations in locomotion. However, such discomforts are challenging to assess using current subjective scales and objective physiological measurements. To tackle this issue, this paper suggests continuous measurement methods designed specifically for evaluating transient physiological discomfort during VR locomotion. Through a user-elicitation study, three preferred measurement methods—’squeezing ball’, ’sliding thumb’, and ’rubbing thigh’—were identified. These techniques were then evaluated for reliability, validity, attention, presence, and workload, with ’sliding thumb’ identified as the most effective option. The paper expands traditional measurement methods to capture users’ physiological experiences in VR interactions, offering practical choices for researchers in this field along with an in-depth discussion of design considerations, detailed implementation guidelines, and potential ways to optimize the VR experiences utilizing the measurement data.

Emotion regulation (ER) is a central topic in perception and cognition. With the development of virtual reality (VR) technology, its high levels of immersion, interactivity, and controllability have made it a promising tool for ER. Recent studies have demonstrated that VR-based interventions can enhance ER. However, the effectiveness of ER largely depends on the strategies employed. This critical factor has often been underexplored in VR-based ER research. To address this gap, this study investigates the effectiveness and neurophysiological characteristics of four ER strategies: distraction, emotional expression, cognitive reappraisal, and expressive suppression in VR, using both subjective ratings and objective neurophysiological data. A non-VR self-regulation strategy serves as the baseline. The results reveal that VR-based ER strategies significantly enhance individual emotional valence. For low-arousal negative emotions, distraction, emotional expression, and cognitive reappraisal show significant regulatory effects in VR, with emotional expression exhibiting the strongest impact. For high-arousal negative emotions, only cognitive reappraisal is effective. In contrast, expressive suppression does not produce significant effects for either type of negative emotion. These findings further support the role of VR in facilitating ER and provide empirical evidence for the informed selection of VR-based ER strategies. This research also contributes to the theoretical foundation of affective computing.

Virtual reality (VR) is found to present significant cognitive challenges due to its immersive nature and frequent sensory conflicts. This study systematically investigates the impact of sensory conflicts induced by VR remapping techniques on cognitive fatigue, and unveils their correlation. We utilized three remapping methods (haptic repositioning, head-turning redirection, and giant resizing) to create different types of sensory conflicts, and measured perceptual thresholds to induce various intensities of the conflicts. Through experiments involving cognitive tasks along with subjective and physiological measures, we found that all three remapping methods influenced the onset and severity of cognitive fatigue, with visual-vestibular conflict having the greatest impact. Interestingly, visual-experiential/memory conflict showed a mitigating effect on cognitive fatigue, emphasizing the role of novel sensory experiences. This study contributes to a deeper understanding of cognitive fatigue under sensory conflicts and provides insights for designing VR experiences that align better with human perceptual and cognitive capabilities.