When Seeing Isn't Believing: How Prior Immersion History Dissociates Perceptual from Evaluative Responses to Immersive Displays

Abstract

As virtual exhibitions increasingly incorporate costly, large-scale immersive technologies, understanding the complex human factors that influence user experience becomes critical to justify such investments. While hardware specifications, such as spatial enclosure, are recognized determinants of immersion, their interaction with users' prior experience remains underexplored. This study employed a between-subjects factorial design (N = 60), combining quasi-experimental user stratification based on self-reported prior experience levels (Low, Medium, High) with randomized assignment to two contrasting display modalities: a custom-built, high-fidelity immersive LED booth versus a standard 4K television display. Results from 2 × 3 factorial ANOVAs revealed a critical divergence. Although the LED interface consistently demonstrated an absolute advantage in perceptual metrics like Spatial Presence across all user groups (an ordinal interaction), evaluative metrics such as Satisfaction exhibited a disordinal (crossover) interaction. Specifically, the significant evaluative advantage of the LED interface disappeared entirely among medium-experience users. We interpret this perceptual-evaluative dissociation through an expectancy-based framework, positing a psychological evolution wherein the initial "novelty effect" that drives novices has diminished, yet the critical "connoisseurship" characteristic of experts has not fully developed in medium-experience users, rendering them less evaluatively sensitive to hardware fidelity. This study proposes a dual-layer framework distinguishing between perceptual constancy and evaluative contingency, advocating for audience-segmented design strategies for experiential virtual exhibitions that align hardware investment with target audience expectation thresholds rather than relying on universal technological determinism.

Keywords: Human Factors, Virtual Environments, Presence, User Experience, Expectancy Violation, Interaction Effect.

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1007656