Potential Of Immersive Virtual Reality Research Articles

Easing the Difficulty of Choosing a Nursing Home: Usability and Acceptability of Immersive Virtual Reality as a Spatial Presentation Tool for Older Adults

A suitable presentation of nursing home environments can assist older adults in efficiently understanding retirement living spaces and thereby making the right nursing home choice. This study focuses on exploring the potential of immersive virtual reality (IVR) applied to the display of nursing home environments. We compare IVR with photographs and 360° panoramas to detect the differences in presence, spatial perception, and technology acceptance among older adults. Findings suggest that IVR provides a more robust sense of presence and more accurate spatial estimation and detail memorization compared to the other two formats, and that there is a positive response at the level of perceived usefulness and willingness to use. In this study, the usability and acceptability of IVR as a spatial presentation tool for nursing homes was effectively demonstrated.

Impact of immersive virtual reality games or traditional physical exercise on cardiovascular and autonomic responses, enjoyment and sleep quality: a randomized crossover study

Objectives: To assess the potential of immersive virtual reality (IVR) in achieving moderate exercise intensity, and 2) to examine the acute effects of two IVR exergame sessions (BOXVR and Beat Saber), comparing them with the impact of traditional exercise on heart rate variability (HRV), perceived effort, delayed onset muscle soreness, motivation, and sleep. Materials and methods: A crossover design was used. The participants (n = 22) randomly performed two sessions of IVR and one session of moderate intensity physical activity, each session lasting 30 min. Heart Rate (HR) and HRV, Perceived Exertion Scale, Intrinsic Motivation Inventory, sleep quality, and perceived pain, were evaluated. Results: The cardiac response to the activities was significantly higher when participants performed traditional physical activity as compared to the BOXVR and Beat Saber games. Traditional training provided a different HRV response as compared to Beat Saber (LnRMSSD, p = 0.025; SDNN, p = 0.031). Although the sessions were planned for moderate intensity, BOXVR generated a moderate intensity (49.3% HRreserve), Beat Saber (29.6% HRreserve) a light one, and the Circuit session, a vigorous one (62.9% HRreserve). In addition, traditional training reported higher perceived exertion and pain with less enjoyment. Differences were observed between the exergames. BOXVR resulted in a lower cardiac response (HRmax and HRmean), and a higher perception of exertion and pain at 72 h. The sleep variables analyzed were not altered by any of the sessions. Conclusions: BOXVR and traditional training can lead to moderate intensity physical activity. However, traditional training could result in lower adherence to physical exercise programs, as it was perceived as more intense and less enjoyable.

Effects of integrating a role‐playing game into a virtual reality‐based learning approach on students' perceptions of immersion, self‐efficacy, learning motivation and achievements

AbstractVirtual contexts play a crucial role in assisting students' learning. Researchers have taken advantage of the potential of immersive virtual reality (VR) for situating students in inaccessible places, and for engaging them in learning activities. Meanwhile, several previous studies have reported that, in VR‐based learning contexts, students' perception of immersion and learning motivation could be low owing to the lack of clear objectives and problem‐solving scenarios. On the other hand, digital game‐based learning is capable of enhancing students' engagement in a task. In this study, we designed a learning approach (namely RPG‐VR) by means of integrating a role‐playing game with VR technology to enhance students' science learning. Furthermore, a quasi‐experiment was conducted to evaluate the students' learning effectiveness via, respectively, providing the RPG‐VR learning approach and the conventional VR (called C‐VR) learning approach for the experimental and control groups. The experimental results indicated that this approach significantly enhanced the students' perceptions of immersion, self‐efficacy and extrinsic learning motivation, in comparison with the C‐VR learning approach. Specifically, students who learned with the RPG‐VR learning approach perceived more immersion in the engagement and the total immersion stages. This study contributes to existing knowledge of VR technology by providing that a digital role‐playing game could reinforce the main characteristics of VR‐based learning environments and enhance students' concentration on a learning task. However, no significant difference was found between the two groups in terms of promoting students' learning achievements, implying that more instructional assistance is needed to improve students' knowledge gains in VR‐based learning environments. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic Virtual contexts play a crucial role in promoting students' learning performances. Virtual reality has been adopted for situating students in inaccessible places to promote their learning. A DGBL context provides students with opportunities for learning that emphasize immersion in practice, resulting in concept acquisition and skill development. What this paper adds An RPG‐VR learning approach was designed by means of integrating a role‐playing game with VR technology to enhance students' science learning. A virtual reality learning system with a role‐playing game was developed based on the proposed approach. This approach significantly enhanced the students' perceptions of self‐efficacy, extrinsic learning motivation and immersion, especially in the engagement and the total immersion stages. A digital role‐playing game could reinforce the main characteristics of VR‐based learning environments. Implications for practice and/or policy The RPG‐VR learning approach could be a notable reference for further research on VR‐based learning environments. More instructional assistance is needed to improve students' knowledge gains in VR‐based learning environments.

Exploring the Potential of Immersive Virtual Reality in Italian Schools: A Practical Workshop with High School Teachers

In recent years, there has been a surge of interest in affordable and accessible extended reality devices. Big tech companies like Apple and Meta have announced advanced devices expected to become more prevalent in everyday life. As younger generations embrace immersive digital realities for socialization, entertainment, and information retrieval, there is a need to explore immersive digital technologies that support experiential learning and reevaluate educational approaches. In Italy, the COVID-19 pandemic has sparked a growing interest in immersive virtual reality (VR) and the metaverse for distance education. However, the integration of VR in Italian schools could be faster, primarily due to cost and teacher knowledge challenges. Our study aims to involve high school teachers in a practical workshop to assess their knowledge, skills, and intention to use VR in their teaching after brief training. The focus is on evaluating the acceptability of VR for educational purposes among Italian high school teachers. The workshop involved up to 16 teachers at once and was repeated eight times to reach 120 teachers. Participants received VR training and explored three educational VR applications. The results show that teachers are interested in learning and integrating VR into their lessons. They believe it can enhance teaching practices by actively engaging students and enabling experiential learning. This work provides an overview of the current state of VR in education, describes the workshop with high school teachers, and presents the obtained results.

Exploring the Potential of Immersive Virtual Reality in the Treatment of Unilateral Spatial Neglect Due to Stroke: A Comprehensive Systematic Review.

The present review aims to explore the use of Immersive Virtual Reality (IVR) in the treatment of visual perception in Unilateral Spatial Neglect (USN) after a stroke. PubMed, Scopus, Embase and Pedro databases were searched, from inception to 1 February 2022. All studies that investigated the effect of IVR on USN, such as outcome in the stroke population, have been included. The current comprehensive systematic review was performed following Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) recommendations and was registered in the PROSPERO database [CRD42022311284]. Methodological quality was assessed through JBI critical appraisal tool. A total of 436 articles were identified through the database searches. A total of 10 articles, with a heterogeneous study design, which involved 77 patients with USN with low-to-moderate methodological quality, have been selected. Five out the included studies tested usability of IVR for assessed or treated visual perception deficits in USN, comparing the results with 134 healthy subjects. In the rest of studies that tested IVR such as treatment, three showed statistical positive results (p < 0.05) in visual perception outcome. To date, the literature has suggested the potential benefits in the use of IVR for the treatment of visual perception disorders in USN. Interestingly, IVR motivates patients during the rehabilitation process improving compliance and interest. The heterogeneity in the studies' design and in IVR treatments indicate the need of future investigations in the consideration of potentiality and low-cost of this technology.

The Potential of Immersive Virtual Reality for the Study of Event Perception

In everyday life, we actively engage in different activities from a first-person perspective. However, experimental psychological research in the field of event perception is often limited to relatively passive, third-person computer-based paradigms. In the present study, we tested the feasibility of using immersive virtual reality in combination with eye tracking with participants in active motion. Behavioral research has shown that speakers of aspectual and non-aspectual languages attend to goals (endpoints) in motion events differently, with speakers of non-aspectual languages showing relatively more attention to goals (endpoint bias). In the current study, native speakers of German (non-aspectual) and English (aspectual) walked on a treadmill across 3-D terrains in VR, while their eye gaze was continuously tracked. Participants encountered landmark objects on the side of the road, and potential endpoint objects at the end of it. Using growth curve analysis to analyze fixation patterns over time, we found no differences in eye gaze behavior between German and English speakers. This absence of cross-linguistic differences was also observed in behavioral tasks with the same participants. Methodologically, based on the quality of the data, we conclude that our dynamic eye-tracking setup can be reliably used to study what people look at while moving through rich and dynamic environments that resemble the real world.

The potential of immersive virtual reality for representations in design education

The potential of immersive virtual reality for representations in design education

Using Virtual Reality to Stimulate Healthy and Environmentally Friendly Food Consumption among Children: An Interview Study

Since habits formed during childhood are predictive of adult behaviour, children form an important target group when it comes to improving healthy and environmentally friendly food consumption. To explore the potential of immersive virtual reality (VR) in this respect, we conducted a semi-structured interview study (N = 22) among children aged 6–13 years. This study consisted of two parts: (1) a VR experience and (2) a semi-structured interview to investigate (1) to what extent children are able to recall and understand information about the impact of food products on their health and the environment when provided to them as pop-ups in a VR supermarket; (2) what rational and emotional processes are triggered by this information; and (3) what children’s expectations about the real-life application and impact of the pop-ups are, and why. Interview data were analysed using the framework method. Results showed that although all participants were able to recall the information, only children from an average age of ten years old also understood the information. When participants understood the information, they were often aware of and felt sorry for their negative behavioural impact. Most participants expected their behaviour to positively change when imagining real-life application of the pop-ups.

Virtual reality for memory rehabilitation

This paper describes a prototype virtual reality (VR) system that has been developed to assist the rehabilitation of elderly with mild-to-moderate memory deficits. The use of virtual reality in rehabilitation is reviewed along with the clinical requirements to establish the framework for the proposed system. This framework is presented together with the use of the prototype system to perform a simple cooking task in a virtual kitchen. The evaluation results show that the completion time for the virtual task is dependent on the person's mobility and knowledge of computers. It was found that the mean completion time decreases significantly with more practices. Although the time taken for the completion of the virtual cooking task is longer than the average time needed to actually cook a package of instant noodle, the overall results give strong indication of the usability of the VR application for rehabilitation. The results are encouraging and show the potential of immersive virtual reality for memory rehabilitation.