Appendix 1

Pre- and post-experience comparisons of tech and arts aspects The pre-experience context included items defining each participant’s tech and arts propensity. The pre-experience tech-propensity block (competence, interest, habitual VR engagement) served as a baseline for interpreting susceptibility to post-experience technical burdens (frustration, confusion, perceived taxingness). The pre-experience arts-propensity block (arts competence, interest, habitual engagement with arts) served as a baseline for interpreting post-experience aesthetic appeal. Both the post-experience tech usability and aesthetic appraisal items capture an event-specific response that can diverge from their respective pre-experience baselines, particularly in immersive formats where sensory and technical mediation jointly shape what becomes salient. The summed scores for each construct – pre-experience focus on the arts and tech, as well as post-experience tech usability and aesthetic appeal – were analysed within specific numerical ranges to interpret each construct’s mean score, as presented in the table below. Subsequently, the scores were converted into a qualitative code to enable within-individual qualitative pre–post comparison (Caracelli & Greene, 1993, p. 197). Table 1. Interpretation of mean values Mean score Answer Coding 1–1.80 strongly disagree - 1.81–2.60 disagree - 2.61–3.40 neither agree nor disagree tech, arts 3.41–4.20 agree TECH, ARTS 4.21–5 strongly agree TECH!, ARTS! My coding (Appendix 1) shows that appraisals either stayed aligned with their pre-entry focus, increased (uplift), or decreased (under-delivery). Importantly downward shifts were typically single-step drops from very high baselines, e.g., TECH!→TECH (9 cases) and ART!→ART (11 cases), suggesting baseline misalignment rather than a simple deficit pattern. The band-shift coding preserves interpretable variation by making within-person shifts visible even when raw post scores (and r) show limited spread. This helps explain why individual movement can coexist with near-zero correlations.