Smart textiles, integrating electronic components into fabrics, enhance Extended Reality (XR) interactions by enabling intuitive, haptic, and embodied experiences. This paper addresses three key questions about smart textiles in XR—their current role, design space, and user perceptions—via a scoping review of 109 publications, a novel design framework, case studies, and an empirical user study. The review synthesizes trends, such as the dominance of on-body forms like gloves in Virtual Reality (VR) for haptic feedback, while identifying gaps in Augmented Reality (AR)/Mixed Reality (MR) and near/off-body textiles. Further, we proposed a design space structured around Textile Form, Interaction Mode, and Application Domain to map synergies and opportunities, demonstrated via two cases: a smart pillow for haptic social interactions in VR and wearable keyboard sleeves for text entry in MR. Besides, an exploratory image-based perception study suggests that familiar on-body forms and gesture/tactile interaction concepts were perceived relatively favorably, while some biodata-related concepts raised anticipated comfort and privacy concerns. These results provide framework and insights for HCI researchers and designers, fostering innovation in textile-augmented XR that bridges physical and digital realms.
Embodiment is a core construct in immersive human–computer interaction, yet it is often assumed that increasing multisensory feedback linearly enhances embodied experience. Using an extended reality brain–machine interface (XR–BMI) task, we investigated whether sensory load modulates embodiment and whether affective, experiential, and dispositional factors provide a more informative psychological account of individual differences. Participants performed a BMI task under visual, audiovisual, and audiovisual-tactile conditions, while embodiment subcomponents (ownership, agency, self-location), cybersickness, anxiety, personality traits, and task performance were assessed. Contrary to prevailing assumptions, no statistically significant differences in global embodiment or its subcomponents were observed across sensory conditions. Complementary Bayesian analyses provided moderate evidence favoring models that excluded an effect of sensory condition on embodiment. Instead, cybersickness showed the most consistent negative association with reduced embodiment across conditions. This association remained significant in combined sensitivity analyses, although its independent contribution in adjusted models was attenuated. Mediation analyses identified an indirect statistical pathway consistent with the proposed model, whereby anxiety was associated with lower embodiment via increased cybersickness. Stable personality traits showed limited explanatory value beyond cybersickness. Global embodiment was not associated with BMI performance, although exploratory analyses suggested that spatial self-location may influence the relationship between cybersickness and task performance. Overall, these findings suggest that, under the present experimental conditions, cybersickness is a more consistent correlate of embodiment than increasing sensory load, although smaller effects of sensory enrichment cannot be ruled out. These findings highlight the importance of minimizing cybersickness and promoting sensorimotor coherence when designing immersive XR–BMI systems.
There is growing concern surrounding the health and wellbeing of children, as many do not meet physical activity guidelines. Augmented Reality (AR) has been successfully employed in smartphone games to promote physically active play. However, the potential social and physical risks of children moving around a play space with a smartphone have not been explored. This study aimed to investigate the impact of an AR enhanced playground on peer connection, simulator sickness and miscoordination (trips, bumps, loss of balance and falls). Seventeen pairs of 5–8-year-old children participated in an AR animal search (marker-based AR app on a smartphone) and plastic toy animal search tasks, in a laboratory playground. Searches were conducted under low-structure play conditions and during high-structure obstacle courses. Questionnaires on connection and sickness were completed after each condition and miscoordination events retrospectively coded from video. Peer connection was unaffected by animal format (AR: 4.9±2.2/7 vs non-AR: 4.7±2.2, p=0.311). Overall symptoms of simulator sickness were slightly higher during AR versus toys (AR: 0.6±1.3/10 vs non-AR: 0.4±0.9, p=0.035) however analysis of individual symptoms revealed no significant differences and 92
Preoperative anxiety is common during third molar extractions and is associated with heightened pain perception and physiological changes. Non-pharmacological strategies such as virtual reality (VR) aromatherapy have shown potential to alleviate perioperative distress, though comparative evidence remains scarce. This randomized controlled trial included 279 patients undergoing included third molar extraction under local anesthesia, assigned to immersive VR, lavender aromatherapy or control conditions. Anxiety (State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, STAI), physiological parameters—heart rate (HR), systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), and oxygen saturation (SAT)—and postoperative pain (Visual Analog Scale, VAS) were evaluated at predefined time points. Both interventions significantly reduced anxiety levels (state anxiety aromatherapy: r = 0.40, p = 0.01; state anxiety VR: r = 0.39, p < 0.001), with slightly larger effect sizes in the aromatherapy group. HR decreased across all groups, most markedly with aromatherapy (r = 0.60). SAT increased significantly in the VR group (r = 0.49), while aromatherapy produced the most marked reductions in SBP (r = 0.39) and DBP (r = 0.21). Postoperative pain was significantly lower with aromatherapy (VAS 11.99 ± 8.04 mm vs. 16.23 ± 9.10 mm in control, p = 0.04), whereas VR showed a non-significant trend (p = 0.07). In conclusion, both immersive VR and lavender aromatherapy were associated with reduced perioperative anxiety in patients undergoing third molar extraction. Aromatherapy showed greater benefits in postoperative pain, whereas VR demonstrated a non-significant trend toward pain reduction. Physiological differences between groups were small and of uncertain clinical relevance.
Classifying walking-in-place (WIP) states in virtual reality (VR) as a method for locomotion through extended virtual environments remains a critical challenge for enhancing immersion and interaction. This paper addresses WIP navigation by converting motion sensor data–captured from VR headsets and controllers, including head and hand movements–into 2D images for neural network-based classification. We evaluate two approaches: a traditional artificial neural network based on the multilayer perceptron (MLP) and a neuromorphic model based on the resonate-and-fire (RAF) neuron. First, we show that the image encoding, which aggregates the recent movement history into two complementary 2D projections, allows networks with a single hidden unit to classify WIP states in real time, achieving 99.87
