Virtual reality (VR) horror games can evoke intense feelings of fear and anxiety, yet it remains unclear how different types of fear stimuli within VR environments contribute to these physiological and emotional responses. While prior studies often investigate multisensory tension scenarios as a whole based on full-featured horror games, few have directly compared the effects of distinct fear stimuli—specifically, instant threat-based (e.g., sudden jump scares or chasing events) and prolonged atmospheric (e.g., persistent eerie ambiance) cues—on physiological indicators of fear. To address this gap, we developed a custom VR horror game that isolates these two categories of stimuli, enabling controlled experiments to examine their respective impacts on user physiology and self-reported fear. We compared experimental scenes featuring instant and prolonged stimuli against a baseline control scene to evaluate their influence. The results validate that instant stimuli exert a more pronounced influence on heart rate (HR) data, particularly in Maximum BPM and Average BPM metrics, while prolonged stimuli have a stronger effect on electrodermal activity (EDA), especially in EDA Max and EDA Mean Absolute Difference (MAD) metrics. The findings also reveal significant gender differences in certain physiological indicators and suggest that VR-based interventions could be tailored to modulate specific physiological systems by manipulating the type of emotional stimuli presented to the patient, potentially enhancing the effectiveness of therapeutic outcomes.
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