Abstract
Engaging in physical exercise in a virtual reality (VR) environment has been reported to improve physical effort and affective states. However, these conclusions might be influenced by experimental design factors, such as comparing VR environments against a non-VR environment without actively controlling for the presence of visual input in non-VR conditions. The present study addressed this issue to examine affective and attentional states in a virtual running task. Participants (n = 40), completed a 21 min run on a treadmill at 70% of Vmax. One group of participants ran in a computer-generated VR environment that included other virtual runners while another group ran while viewing neutral images. Participants in both conditions showed a pattern of reduced positive affect and increased tension during the run with a return to high positive affect after the run. In the VR condition, higher levels of immersive tendencies and attention/absorption in the virtual environment were associated with more positive affect after the run. In addition, participants in the VR condition focused attention more on external task-relevant stimuli and less to internal states than participants in the neutral images condition. However, the neutral images condition produced less negative affect and more enjoyment after the run than the VR condition. The finding suggest that the effects of exercising in a VR environment will depend on individual difference factors (e.g., attention/absorption in the virtual world) but it may not always be better than distracting attention away from exercise-related cues.
Highlights
The application of virtual reality (VR) technology to enhance physical activity first became prominent in the 1990s
The present study examined psychological states when engaging in physical exercise in a VR
Participants engaged in a 21 min run that increased from a light intensity to a vigorous intensity while either viewing the run in a VR environment that included other avatars, as well as their own, or while viewing neutral images
Summary
The application of virtual reality (VR) technology to enhance physical activity first became prominent in the 1990s. Ijsselsteign et al [15] used a virtual cycling task and reported correlations between subjectively measured presence and variables such as interest/enjoyment, perceived control, and pressure/tension These findings support the role of presence in influencing affective states following VR-based exercise. Mestre et al [16] measured attentional focus using a visual analogue scale in which attention was defined by the end points of association (i.e., focusing on internal stimuli) and dissociation (focusing on external stimuli) Their procedure examined stationary cycling performance in a VR environment with a virtual coach pacer. Due to the prominently visual nature of virtual environments, it would be instructive to compare exercise in a VR environment with exercise while viewing a neutral visual stimulus (e.g., a video irrelevant to exercise or a sequence of neutral images) This type of active control condition would not induce a sense of presence in another world. It was expected that the tendency to be immersed and to feel presence would be associated with more positive and less negative affective states
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