Abstract
Mindfulness is considered an important factor of an individual's subjective well-being. Consequently, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) has investigated approaches that strengthen mindfulness, i.e., by inventing multimedia technologies to support mindfulness meditation. These approaches often use smartphones, tablets, or consumer-grade desktop systems to allow everyday usage in users' private lives or in the scope of organized therapies. Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed Reality (VR, AR, MR; in short: XR) significantly extend the design space for such approaches. XR covers a wide range of potential sensory stimulation, perceptive and cognitive manipulations, content presentation, interaction, and agency. These facilities are linked to typical XR-specific perceptions that are conceptually closely related to mindfulness research, such as (virtual) presence and (virtual) embodiment. However, a successful exploitation of XR that strengthens mindfulness requires a systematic analysis of the potential interrelation and influencing mechanisms between XR technology, its properties, factors, and phenomena and existing models and theories of the construct of mindfulness. This article reports such a systematic analysis of XR-related research from HCI and life sciences to determine the extent to which existing research frameworks on HCI and mindfulness can be applied to XR technologies, the potential of XR technologies to support mindfulness, and open research gaps. Fifty papers of ACM Digital Library and National Institutes of Health's National Library of Medicine (PubMed) with and without empirical efficacy evaluation were included in our analysis. The results reveal that at the current time, empirical research on XR-based mindfulness support mainly focuses on therapy and therapeutic outcomes. Furthermore, most of the currently investigated XR-supported mindfulness interactions are limited to vocally guided meditations within nature-inspired virtual environments. While an analysis of empirical research on those systems did not reveal differences in mindfulness compared to non-mediated mindfulness practices, various design proposals illustrate that XR has the potential to provide interactive and body-based innovations for mindfulness practice. We propose a structured approach for future work to specify and further explore the potential of XR as mindfulness-support. The resulting framework provides design guidelines for XR-based mindfulness support based on the elements and psychological mechanisms of XR interactions.
Highlights
The analysis of along the dimensions of digital mindfulness support proposed by Terzimehicet al. (2019) showed that XR mindfulness research is still very limited compared to the general research on mindfulness in humancomputer interaction (HCI)
The present paper provides a systematic analysis of the current literature with regard to the influence of different XR contents on mindfulness
The results of our review show that XR mindfulness research has so far focused on mindfulness in a rather limited way
Summary
145) has, among other things, been shown to increase happiness, work satisfaction, sense of meaning, sleep quality, and symptoms of chronic pain It provides a positive effect on cognitive abilities such as attention span, creativity or problem solving. Some models and frameworks exist, which define guidelines for the design of digital mindfulness support (e.g., Salehzadeh Niksirat et al, 2017; Zhu et al, 2017). While those frameworks and models mainly focus on digital mindfulness practice via smartphone apps or wearables, in recent years, researchers have addressed the question of whether Virtual (VR), Augmented (AR), or Mixed (MR) Reality (in short: XR) can positively support mindfulness practice to a greater extent. We propose a framework combining guidelines for digital mindfulness support with XR-specific design elements and impact paths
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