This research explores the user experience design elements necessary to evoke the emotion called kama muta, most commonly known as” being moved” or “being touched”, in a virtual reality concert.

Previous research has been able to mediate this emotion using video, nevertheless, to the best of my knowledge, no work has been done related to evoking kama muta in Virtual Reality. Accordingly, a VR experience prototype was created to simulate the performance of a fictional pop singer called X-ABC, who would have been dealing with grief as a consequence of his brother being missing and decides to share his feelings with the audience. Twenty participants took part in a between subjects’ study, in which they reported their emotional state using the KAMMUS Two, and Bailenson’s social presence questionnaires. Ultimately, participants’ answers were analysed using quantitative and qualitative methods.

Overall, the findings suggest that it is possible to elicit kama muta in a simulation by featuring a narrative that increases the intensity of communal sharing relationships, such as loss, reunion, or memories of loved ones. It was also found that the user-experience design elements that contributed the most to the emotional response were a set of floating screens with portraits of the siblings when they were children, a believable voice acting and a character with emotional facial animations which were also lip-synced with the acted voice.