Does understanding of pilgrimage routes elicit idealised emotional experiences through virtual reality walking?

A research article co-authored by CTR Visiting Fellow, Dr. Eiji Ito (Chukyo University, Japan) has been published in the journal, Rural Society.

 

 

 

 

Title

Does understanding of pilgrimage routes elicit idealised emotional experiences through virtual reality walking?

 

Authors

Eiji Ito, School of Health and Sport Sciences, Chukyo University, Toyota, Aichi, Japan

Shintaro Kono, Faculty of Kinesiology, Sport, and Recreation, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada

Kei Tanisho, Faculty of Health and Well-being, Kansai University, Sakai, Japan

Tsukasa Kawanishi, Department of Sports and Health Sciences, Chubu Gakuin University, Seki, Japan

 

Source

Rural Society, 1–16, 2024

https://doi.org/10.1080/10371656.2024.2439156

* Indexed in Scopus

Journal details: https://www.scopus.com/sourceid/5600153488

 

Abstract

The World Heritage pilgrimage routes known as Kumano Kodo have attracted both Japanese and international tourists to the rural area of Japan. By focussing on the two types of emotional experiences, namely awe and ideal affect, this research aims to investigate whether greater understanding of Kumano Kodo (a) influences awe experiences and (b) helps minimise ideal-actual positive affect discrepancies, when watching a virtual reality video of a Kumano Kodo walk. Through an experimental study involving a video, we found that greater understanding of Kumano Kodo neither significantly influenced awe experiences nor reduced the ideal-actual positive affect discrepancies. These null results are discussed in relation to the temporal aspect of awe in tourism contexts and the sources of tourism information-stimuli.

 

Keywords

Emotion, Forest, Psychology, Rural tourism, Virtual reality, Well-being, World heritage