Balancing Immersion and Emotion: Optimizing VR Fire Safety Training through Emotional Design

Existing VR fire safety training systems often overlook the impact of emotion regulation and immersion on learning outcomes. This study investigates the effects of immersion and emotional design on learning in VR fire safety training through a 2×2 between-subjects experiment. Results show that high immersion significantly enhances immediate recall of conceptual knowledge, while negative emotional design improves retention of procedural knowledge. However, the synergistic effect of high immersion and negative emotional design significantly elevated environmental cognitive load. These findings extend the cognitive-affective theory of multimedia learning to 3D virtual spaces and highlight the moderating role of system immersion in instructional design principles.