Abstract
Virtual reality (VR) might increase the ecological validity of psychological studies as it allows submerging into real-life experiences under controlled laboratory conditions. We intended to provide empirical evidence for this claim at the example of the famous invisible gorilla paradigm (Simons and Chabris in Perception, 28(9), 1059–1074, 1999). To this end, we confronted one group of participants with a conventional 2D-video of two teams passing basketballs. To the second group of participants, we presented the same stimulus material as a 3D360°-VR-video and to a third group as a 2D360°-VR-video. Replicating the original findings, in the video condition, only ~ 30% of the participants noticed the gorilla. However, in both VR-conditions, the detection rate was increased to ~ 70%. The illusion of spatial proximity in VR enhances the salience of the gorilla, thereby enhancing the noticing rate. VR mimics the perceptual characteristics of the real world and provides a useful tool for psychological studies.
Highlights
Psychological research at least implicitly takes for granted that scientific results from the laboratory generalize to real-world cognition
Virtual reality (VR) is a methodology that provides the possibility of bridging the gap between the real world and the laboratory
The present study aimed to investigate differences in attentional processing between virtual reality and conventional laboratory conditions at the example of sustained inattentional blindness as observed in the famous invisible gorilla paradigm (Simons and Chabris 1999)
Summary
Psychological research at least implicitly takes for granted that scientific results from the laboratory generalize to real-world cognition. Despite this high claim of ecological validity, experimental designs often involve the use of simple and static stimuli in an artificial setting lacking many of the potentially important aspects of realworld experiences. The ecological approach is assumed to lack internal validity and experimental control (e.g., Parsons 2015). VR-based paradigms could substantially increase the ecological validity of psychological research under controlled laboratory conditions.
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