[Environmental modulation of musical emotion: frequency-specific analysis based on virtual reality and...

Musical emotion perception, as a key pathway to decoding the essence of human emotions, requires the analysis of its regulatory mechanisms for the development of precise neural modulation strategies. Although electroencephalography (EEG) signals can be used to capture the dynamic neural activities associated with music emotion processing, and virtual reality (VR) technology can offer immersive enhancement effects for emotion regulation, the interaction mechanism among the VR environment, music emotion and neural activity remains unclear. This study established a multimodal experimental paradigm of "VR environment-music stimulation-EEG response" and employed multi-band feature analysis to systematically elucidate the neural dynamics patterns of musical emotion perception during transitions between different virtual scenarios. The results demonstrated that the right temporal lobe exhibited significant electrophysiological changes when comparing real and virtual scenarios, while posterior brain regions were sensitive to differences in virtual environments. Furthermore, the environment exerted specific modulation on both low-frequency and high-frequency EEG activities, with the δ energy percentage demonstrating a context-dependent differentiation in music emotion perception. This study, through virtual scenario-modulated music emotion perception experiments, systematically reveals the frequency-band-specific modulation effects of environmental factors on music emotion, establishes the energy ratio of the δ band as a key biomarker for environment-emotion interaction, and provides an important theoretical basis and quantitative assessment methods for the development of immersive emotion regulation strategies and clinical psychological interventions.