Access To Virtual Reality Research Articles

Assessing Inhibitory Control in the Real World Is Virtually Possible: A Virtual Reality Demonstration.

Executive functions are the key ingredient for behaviour regulation. Among them, inhibitory control is one of the main exponents of executive functions, and in the last decades, it has received a good amount of attention thanks to the development of chronometric tasks associated with paradigms that allow exploring human behaviour when the inhibitory component is needed. Among the different paradigms typically used, the Simon and flanker tasks are probably the most popular ones. These have been subjected to modifications in order to assess inhibitory control from different perspectives (e.g., in different samples or in combination with different research techniques). However, its use has been relegated to classical presentation modalities within laboratory settings. The accessibility of virtual reality (VR) technology has opened new research avenues to investigate inhibition control with a high ecological validity while retaining tightly controlled lab conditions and good measurement accuracy. We present two cutting-edge modifications of the standard Simon and flanker tasks that have been adapted to real-world settings using VR and human-like avatars as target stimuli. Our findings show that virtual reality is a credible tool for testing inhibitory control with a high degree of transferability and generalizability to the real world.

Opportunities and Challenges of Virtual Reality in Healthcare – A Domain Experts Inquiry

In recent years, the applications and accessibility of Virtual Reality (VR) for the healthcare sector have continued to grow. However, so far, most VR applications are only relevant in research settings. Information about what healthcare professionals would need to independently integrate VR applications into their daily working routines is missing. The actual needs and concerns of the people who work in the healthcare sector are often disregarded in the development of VR applications, even though they are the ones who are supposed to use them in practice. By means of this study, we systematically involve health professionals in the development process of VR applications. In particular, we conducted an online survey with 102 healthcare professionals based on a video prototype which demonstrates a software platform that allows them to create and utilise VR experiences on their own. For this study, we adapted and extended the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). The survey focused on the perceived usefulness and the ease of use of such a platform, as well as the attitude and ethical concerns the users might have. The results show a generally positive attitude toward such a software platform. The users can imagine various use cases in different health domains. However, the perceived usefulness is tied to the actual ease of use of the platform and sufficient support for learning and working with the platform. In the discussion, we explain how these results can be generalized to facilitate the integration of VR in healthcare practice.

Is VR always better for destination marketing? Comparing different media and styles

The increasing popularity and accessibility of virtual reality (VR) presents an opportunity for destination marketers to leverage its strengths to attract visitors. However, VR's benefits over more traditional media formats remain unclear. This paper reports results from two experiments that compared the impacts of consuming destination marketing material through VR with other media formats. The measured impacts include destination image, perceived advertising effectiveness, and behavioral intentions. Further, the dual experiments allowed for a comparison between different VR content styles (i.e. active vs. passive). Results show that more active VR content largely outperformed other media formats, but with a more passive style of VR these benefits were mostly muted. The findings have direct theoretical and practical implications relating to VR tourism marketing.

Virtual reality as a research method: is this the future of photo-elicitation?

Photo-elicitation is a method commonly employed by researchers attempting to answer questions about the relationship between our built environment and wellbeing. Despite the benefits of this method, there are limitations to the spatial, material and atmospheric understanding obtainable from a two-dimensional image. Given the increasing accessibility of virtual reality (VR) technology, this article reports results from a study that sought to understand whether VR could be the next logical step for researchers who currently employ photo-elicitation. 43 participants were shown the foyer and atrium space of a cancer treatment centre across three different mediums: photographs (14), a virtual environment (11) and a visit to the physical space (18). The variances between data quality obtained across these three experiences was analysed to evaluate the effectiveness of VR-interviews as an alternative to both photo-elicitation and walk-through interviews. While there is much excitement about the possibilities of VR as a visual research method, little research critically evaluates the data quality obtainable using this new technology relative to more traditional methods. Finally, the article provides recommendations for optimising VR for research, relative to enhancing participant engagement and data richness

Walking in someone else’s shoes: creating empathy in the practice of immersive film

ABSTRACTThe rise and accessibility of virtual reality and 360-degree film has led to the assertion that it is an empathy generator (De La Peña, N., P. Well, J. Liobera, E. Giannopoulos, A. Pomés, B. Spanlang, D. Friedman, M. Sanchez- Vives, and M. Slater. 2010. “Immersive Journalism: Immersive Virtual Reality for the First-Person Experience of News.” Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments 19 (4): 291–301. http://hdl.handle.net/2445/52803; Milk 2015. How Virtual Reality can Create the Ultimate Empathy Machine. Accessed February 9, 2018. https://www.ted.com/talks/chris_milk_how_virtual_reality_can_create_the_ultimate_empathy_machine) allowing for a greater level of immersion on the part of the ‘experiencer’ than traditional film enables (Jones, S. 2017. “Disrupting the Narrative: Immersive Journalism in Virtual Reality.” Journal of Media Practice 18 (2–3): 171–185). Films created for a user to ‘walk in someone else’s shoes’ have been used to explore ideas including mobility (StoryUp 2016), health conditions (Gauntlett 2015) and immigration (Milk 2015. How Virtual Reality can Create the Ultimate Empathy Machine. Accessed February 9, 2018. https://www.ted.com/talks/chris_milk_how_virtual_reality_can_create_the_ultimate_empathy_machine) and are increasingly being used by third-sector organisations and the United Nations because of their power as a tool to help understanding of social issues.This paper seeks to critically investigate the concept of empathy within film practice and explore how emerging technologies potentially enable a significant shift in the audience’s experience of a subject. Through a study of immersive films and interviews with leading creators, the notions of empathy-driven practice are interrogated and critiqued. The study provides conditions for future immersive filmic practice that, through using non-directed narratives, involves the creation of a space in which experiencers of immersive experiences can gain an increased awareness of space, place and social relations which can lead to positive societal change without requiring the need for empathy.