Can a VR recreation of a concert make you feel like you were actually there? We explore this question in our latest paper, presented at the Augmented Humans conference 2026 in Okinawa, and the answer surprised us: less realism actually works better.
The core idea is cross-temporal physiological synchrony. We recorded electrodermal activity (EDA) from 40 audience members at a live piano concert, then transformed that data into visualizations embedded in VR recreations of the same concert. 22 participants later experienced these recreations while we measured their own physiological responses, comparing them to the original audience.
We tested three levels of visual abstraction: realistic 360-degree video, a mixed condition blending video with physiological overlays, and a fully abstract symbolic visualization where the audience’s arousal patterns became dandelion-like particle effects floating in a dark space. The hypothesis going in was that realism would win. It did not. The abstract condition produced the strongest physiological synchrony with the original live audience (r = .96, p < .001), significantly outperforming both the mixed (r = .92) and realistic video (r = .91) conditions.
Faithful audiovisual reproduction is not enough – the collective physiological atmosphere matters, and sometimes an abstract representation of that atmosphere connects people more effectively than a photorealistic one.
Era: GEIST lab, Graduate School of Media Design, Keio University (2015 to 2026).
Source: kaikunze.de (26 February 2026).