Effects of virtual reality on creative performance and emotions: A study of brainwaves

Abstract

Creativity is the basis for innovation and a source of national and industrial competitiveness. Thus, pedagogical enhancement of creativity is desirable, particularly via application of new technologies such as virtual reality (VR). The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of VR on creativity (creative outcomes and the creative process), emotions, and brainwaves using a nonequivalent-group pre-post-test quasi-experimental design involving 76 tenth-grade students. An experimental group received training that incorporated VR elements, and a comparison group was taught via lectures combined with multimedia presentations. The main conclusions are as follows: VR exerted large positive effects on the elaboration, vividness, and novelty creative outcomes; VR exerted above-moderate positive effects on feasibility but not novelty; VR exhibited small effect sizes in terms of enjoyment, anger, and anxiety, but a large effect size for boredom, and these emotions positively influenced creativity; and beta and gamma brainwave activity during the ideation and elaboration stages, and delta brainwave activity during the latter stage, were significantly lower in the experimental than comparison group.