Alone or Together? Quantifying Behavioral and Cognitive Impacts in VR Museums Through Trajectory Analytics and Perception Evaluation

This study investigates behavioral differences and experience mechanisms under distinct social scenarios in VR museums. Based on an experimental framework from our prior work, participants were assigned to single-person and dual-person groups (n = 100) for comprehensive analysis integrating trajectory mining and perceptual experience evaluation. Results indicate that single-person groups rely on visual focus stability, yet experience negativity from high-frequency operations. Dual-person groups enhance satisfaction through social coordination, demonstrating significantly better performance across six subjective indicators (attention span, presence, and content impression). Solo exploration requires operational coherence to compensate for isolated experience limitations, whereas group tours transform cognitive load into emotional gains through coordinated navigation. These findings provide critical design implications for VR museums.