In this blog post, we’ll explore how the design of amusement rides stimulates riders’ senses and brains to create thrills and enjoyment.
Many people consider roller coasters to be the most thrilling rides at amusement parks. On a roller coaster, the most thrilling part is, of course, the moment of plummeting from a great height. But roller coasters aren’t the only rides with a drop mechanism. Viking rides also provide thrills by repeatedly ascending and descending. Among these, the Gyro Drop is the ride that features the most dramatic drop mechanism. Lotte World’s Gyro Drop is a drop-tower-style attraction that ascends to a height of approximately 70 meters before plunging rapidly for a brief moment, allowing riders to experience a strong sensation of weightlessness and acceleration during the section that closely resembles free fall.
People know from experience that the longer they fall from a great height, the greater the thrill. But why exactly does this create such a thrill for riders? There are various reasons, but one of the key reasons is that, the moment the ride begins to fall, the force supporting the rider’s body decreases significantly, causing them to experience a sensation of weightlessness—that is, a state where their apparent weight seems to vanish almost entirely. Strictly speaking, the ride’s brief descent is not a state where gravity disappears, but rather a state where the force supporting the rider’s body against the seat is greatly reduced due to free fall. In physics, this state is commonly described as a sensation of weightlessness or a state of apparent weightlessness.
It is a mistake to interpret “weightlessness” literally as a “state without gravity.” According to Newton’s laws of motion, objects near Earth are subject to the force of Earth’s gravity. Celestial bodies with large mass, such as Earth, attract nearby objects, and while we live on Earth’s surface, we are subject to the pull of gravity toward the center of the Earth.
Normally, the ground, a chair, or the seat of a ride supports our bodies; so while gravity pulls us downward, we simultaneously receive upward support from the ground or seat. However, consider a situation where the body is not attached to anything and falls under the influence of gravity. This is called “free fall.” During free fall, the body and the object supporting it move at nearly the same acceleration, so the upward force supporting the body is greatly reduced. Therefore, it is not that gravity disappears, but rather that the entire body accelerates together under the influence of gravity, making the “weight” we normally feel almost imperceptible. The reason astronauts appear to float in space is not because there is no gravity, but because they are in continuous free fall along with the spacecraft.
So, what exactly is the connection between the significant reduction in the supporting force from the floor or a seat and our perception of gravity or motion? Humans have various sensory organs that detect the body’s balance and movement. One of these is the vestibular system located inside the ear. The vestibular system detects head movement and position, helping to maintain posture and balance. In particular, the otolith organs within the vestibular system play a crucial role in detecting gravity and linear acceleration.
Inside the vestibular system are the utricle and saccule, which make up the otolith organs; these contain otoliths—small crystals composed of calcium carbonate. The otoliths rest on a gel-like structure connected to the cilia of sensory cells; when the head tilts or accelerates in a straight line, the inertia of the otoliths causes relative movement. This movement causes the cilia of the sensory cells to bend, and the resulting stimulation is converted into neural signals and transmitted to the brain. Through this process, the brain determines the orientation of the head and body relative to gravity, as well as the direction in which they are moving.
However, the situation changes during free fall. Because the human body and the otolith organs accelerate together under the influence of gravity during free fall, the relationship between gravity and acceleration detected by the otolith organs differs from normal conditions. As a result, the otolith organs find it difficult to strongly convey the gravitational information that they are “facing downward” as they normally would, and the brain experiences a state that differs from the usual sensations regarding the body’s support and gravity. Consequently, during free fall, the sense of balance and spatial orientation differ from normal, and this is a key reason why riders experience a strong sensation of weightlessness.
How does experiencing weightlessness provide a thrill for riders? In everyday life, it is not easy to experience a strong sensation of weightlessness. Jumping from a height in a normal environment carries the risk of falling and injury, making it difficult to safely repeat the experience. Even when jumping from a short height, the fall time is very brief, making it difficult to experience a strong sensation of weightlessness for an extended period; jumping from a greater height significantly increases the risk of injury. In contrast, while riding a roller coaster and experiencing a free fall, riders can experience intense acceleration and a sensation of weightlessness for a short time, all while safety and braking mechanisms are in operation.
However, during the descent on a roller coaster, intense visual, auditory, and tactile stimuli occur simultaneously with this sensation of weightlessness. Because rapid movements, high elevations, high speeds, and sudden descents—experiences rarely encountered in daily life—occur all at once, the brain processes this as a highly significant event. In particular, even when you know it is a safely controlled situation and not an actual danger, your body’s defensive responses and arousal levels may momentarily spike. It is precisely in this process—where actual danger is limited but you experience intense physiological and psychological reactions similar to those in a dangerous situation—that the thrill arises.
The thrill of free-falling isn’t simply due to the sensation of weightlessness. In addition to the sense of balance, various other human senses come into play to create this thrill for the rider. People are often told to close their eyes when they’re scared on a ride. There is some truth to this advice, as visual information has a significant impact on a person’s fear and arousal. If you fall with your eyes closed, you can still feel that your body is moving, but you have less direct visual information about how high you are or how fast you’re falling. On the other hand, if you keep your eyes open, you can directly see the ground rapidly approaching from a great height, which makes you perceive the speed and direction of the fall much more intensely.
It’s not just vision—various senses, including hearing and touch, interact in a complex way. During the free fall, the sound of wind rushing past your ears and the force of the wind against your skin signal that you’re moving rapidly. As the sensation of your body being pressed into the seat or momentarily feeling weightless, the rapidly changing scenery, and the sudden increase in wind noise all occur simultaneously, a flood of sensory information is transmitted to the brain all at once. The combination of these strong sensory stimuli and changes in the sense of balance causes riders to experience the ride’s descent even more intensely.
As we saw earlier, riding a thrill ride induces “fear” or intense tension and arousal. Yet people often remember these rides as fun. Of course, individual differences exist. In fact, some people say that just the sight of a ride makes their heart race, so they cannot even imagine riding it, while others say that although they actually rode it, it was nothing but scary and not fun at all. So, why do people find “scary” rides fun? And what causes these individual differences?
There is a region in the human brain called the amygdala. The amygdala is not a simple organ involved solely in fear; it is a complex neural structure that processes threats and emotionally significant stimuli and is involved in various functions, such as fear conditioning, emotional memory, and stress responses. Current research understands the amygdala not simply as the “place where the emotion of fear is generated,” but rather as one of the key structures that regulates fear and defensive responses by processing threat-related information and interacting with other brain regions and the autonomic nervous system.
Furthermore, the amygdala is involved in the process of recognizing and responding to various dangerous situations an individual encounters. During this process, various physiological changes may occur, such as changes in heart rate, breathing, muscle tension, skin responses, and pupil dilation. When fear or threat is perceived, the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems interact in complex ways depending on the situation; therefore, not everyone exhibits the exact same physiological response. For example, in states of fear or intense arousal, pupils may dilate, and heart rate and vascular responses may also vary depending on the situation. Therefore, rather than directly linking amygdala activity to a single specific physical change, it is more appropriate to understand it as a process involving the coordinated action of multiple brain regions and the autonomic nervous system.
People riding amusement park rides are exposed to various stimuli that resemble “danger” both physically and psychologically. Although the situation is actually controlled by safety devices and the ride’s operating system, sudden acceleration and drops, views from high places, and the surrounding scenery rushing by at high speed can be processed by the brain as stimuli associated with threatening situations. Consequently, various brain regions—including the amygdala—become activated, triggering various physical defense responses, and at the same time, the rider experiences fear or tension. So far, this is a repetition of what was explained earlier. But how can riders experience pleasure during this process?
Pavlov studied the concept of “conditioned reflexes” through his experiments. In one of his most famous experiments, he repeatedly played a bell sound for a dog and then provided food; eventually, the dog began to salivate at the sound of the bell alone, even when no food was offered. In this way, a stimulus and a response that were initially unrelated can become linked through repetitive learning. This phenomenon served as a crucial starting point for the subsequent development of research on conditioning and learning.
Riders on amusement rides can similarly undergo a learning process through experience. Of course, this is not a learning process where stimuli and responses are connected as simply as in the experiment described above. A rider gets on the ride and experiences the fear it evokes. Up to this point, it is a simple experience. However, after getting off the ride, the rider confirms that they have not actually suffered any harm. In other words, the process that riders repeatedly experience can be described as follows: “It is scary and nerve-wracking while riding the ride, but once the ride is over, they confirm that they are safe.” As this experience repeats, riders may learn that the intense arousal and tension provided by the ride are not necessarily linked to actual danger.
Depending on individual differences, some people may find this enjoyable, while others may find it unpleasant. People who are sensitive to the various physical and psychological changes that occur while riding a ride may feel greater discomfort or fear because they are highly stimulated by those changes. On the other hand, people who are relatively less sensitive to such changes or who have a stronger awareness that the ride is safe may remember the enjoyment and excitement of experiencing intense stimulation more than the feeling of fear. Fear and enjoyment are not necessarily opposite emotions; the same state of high arousal can lead to different emotional experiences depending on the situation and the individual’s interpretation.
Furthermore, the amygdala is closely connected not only to fear-related responses but also to the hippocampus, the structure responsible for memory. The interaction between the amygdala and the hippocampus plays a crucial role in remembering emotionally significant events and learning the context in which those events occurred. For this reason, riders who experience intense emotions and sensations while riding a ride may remember that experience as a more intense event than if they had simply sat and passed the time. Because various senses receive strong stimulation simultaneously while riding, the memory of the ride may not remain as “simply sitting and enjoying it,” but rather as an experience of “enjoying it with one’s whole body.” These various factors can leave a strong impression of the ride on the rider. Consequently, visitors to an amusement park may later wish to return to the park or experience the same ride again.
However, riding the same ride multiple times can lead to becoming accustomed to its stimuli. Biologically speaking, rather than simply explaining this as an increase in the “threshold” of the sensory organs, it is more appropriate to understand it as a phenomenon resulting from the combined effects of “habituation”—a decrease in the response to repeated stimuli—and sensory adaptation. A threshold refers to the level of stimulation required for a sensory organ or the nervous system to detect or respond to a specific stimulus. When a specific stimulus is experienced repeatedly, the behavioral and neurological responses to that stimulus may diminish; this phenomenon is called habituation.
The phenomenon of diminished responses to repeated stimuli can be easily observed in everyday life. The moment you put on clothes, you clearly feel the sensation of the fabric against your skin, but as you continue to wear them throughout the day, there comes a point when you barely notice that the clothes are touching your skin. Sensory adaptation and habituation are involved in this process of diminishing responses to repeated and sustained stimuli. However, not all stimuli necessarily weaken in the same way as they are repeated; changes in response can vary depending on the stimulus’s intensity and type, the number of repetitions, the time interval between stimuli, and the individual’s state.
This principle can also apply to some extent to the enjoyment of amusement park rides. When riding a ride for the first time, passengers react strongly to the unfamiliar movements and intense sensations it produces. To experience that thrill again, each subsequent ride may make the initial sensations feel increasingly familiar, and a desire to experience new sensations may arise. However, this does not mean that all riders will necessarily seek only stronger stimuli the more they ride. Nevertheless, as riders become accustomed to a specific ride through repeated experiences, the tension and surprise they felt on their first ride may diminish. For this reason, amusement parks continuously introduce a variety of rides that allow visitors to experience new movements, speeds, heights, and rotations.
So far, we’ve examined how rides provide thrills to people and why people often perceive these thrills as enjoyable experiences rather than merely fear or terror. In summary, rides use their structural characteristics to strongly stimulate riders’ senses. Riders experience simultaneous stimulation of multiple senses, including their sense of balance and vision, as well as hearing and touch. Rapid acceleration and deceleration, free falls, spins, and changes in the field of view from high vantage points cause intense, rapid shifts in information about the body’s movement and the surrounding environment. These sensory stimuli heighten the brain’s arousal and defensive responses, causing riders to experience the ride’s movements with great intensity.
As riders repeatedly experience the ride, they learn that these stimuli pose no actual physical danger to them; consequently, they may come to view the intense tension and arousal as a source of pleasure. Furthermore, since various brain regions—including the amygdala and hippocampus—are involved in the formation of memories associated with emotionally significant experiences, the intense sensations and emotions experienced on a ride can leave a lasting impression. Conversely, repeated exposure to the same stimuli can lead to habituation, potentially diminishing the initial intense reaction. Ultimately, the thrill of a ride is not merely the result of creating a “scary structure”; rather, it arises from the sophisticated combination of various stimuli—such as movement, acceleration, height, visual changes, sound, wind, and the forces transmitted to the body—and the process by which the rider’s brain interprets these within the context of danger and safety.
I looked into this topic because I believe understanding these concepts can be helpful in many ways when riding amusement rides. If you understand why rides are scary, you’ll be able to better grasp where the fear comes from when riding a particularly terrifying ride. Furthermore, riders who understand how rides provide enjoyment will not perceive the intense movements and sensory stimuli they experience as mere fear, but rather as a unique sensation and excitement experienced within a safe, controlled environment.
