This article presents two studies comparing the effects of educational immersive virtual reality (IVR) versus traditional videos on conceptual knowledge and self-efficacy.Learning was measured through multiple-choice questions assessing conceptual knowledge and open-ended questions assessing knowledge understanding, knowledge application, and knowledge creation, based on Bloom's taxonomy of learning objectives.In Experiment 1, 53 eighth-grade students from an all-girls school learned about humans' impact on the ocean through either 360°videos, using a virtual reality (VR) headset, or through traditional videos, using a computer monitor.Measures were taken before and right after treatment.In Experiment 2, 139 sixth-to-eighth grade students from the same school used the same instructional material and equipment from Experiment 1, and measures were taken four times (before treatment, right after two treatment sessions, and 5 weeks after treatment).Also, we measured learning agency and investigated its mediation role between condition and self-efficacy.The groups did not differ on the multiple-choice scores assessing conceptual knowledge in Experiment 1.In Experiment 2, participants in the IVR group scored higher for knowledge creation than participants in the desktop group, but not knowledge understanding or knowledge application.The IVR group scored higher on self-efficacy than the desktop group in Experiment 1, but not in Experiment 2. Finally, learning agency mediated the relationship between condition and self-efficacy in Experiment 2, indicating a possible mechanism underlying immersion effects on self-efficacy.Results are discussed in light of cognitive sciences and their implication for learning in immersive virtual reality.

As the public use of virtual reality (VR) scales, understanding how users engage across various sources of VR content is critical. 360-video is popular due to its ease of both creation and access. There are, however, few studies of 360-videos, and they suffer from three limitations. First, most studies rely on small and homogeneous samples of participants. Second, they tend to examine only a single 360-video, or a handful of them in a few exceptional cases. Third, very few studies trace participants’ VR use over multiple experiences. The current study examined a large sample of participants (511) and a large set of 360-videos (80). Each participant experienced 5 of the videos, and we tracked head movement in addition to self-report data on presence, arousal, simulator sickness, and future use intention for each video. This design allowed us to answer novel questions relating to individual differences of participants and changes in experience over time, and in general to present results of VR use at a scale not seen before in the literature. Moreover, the results suggest that looking at patterns across stimuli provide unique insights which are missed when looking only within a single piece of content.

The present investigation examined the effect of avatar representation, choice, and head movement on prosocial behaviors and measures of presence after a virtual reality perspective-taking (VRPT) task. Participants were either represented by a set of virtual hands or had no representation during a VRPT task. Of those with hands, only half were able to choose their skin tone. Results showed that there was no significant advantage to having an avatar representation. However, if participants had an avatar and were able to choose their own skin tone, a higher proportion of participants performed prosocial behaviors and reported higher social presence scores compared with participants who had no choice. Regardless of condition, head rotations significantly predicted petition signatures such that the more participants rotated their heads side to side, the more likely they were to sign the petition. Moreover, when participants do not consistently rotate their head side to side, the proportion of petitions signed is on par with individuals who do not complete a VRPT task at all.

Virtual reality perspective-taking (VRPT) experiences effectively increase both empathy and prosocial behaviors toward related social targets (e.g., cutting down a tree in virtual reality increases concern for the environment). This project tests the prediction that empathy is analogous to a muscle that increases with practice and can transfer to unrelated contexts instead of being a mental state that increases only for a specific context or target. This study examines the extent to which VRPT experiences can train empathic skills that are applied to unrelated social targets and contexts. Two thirds of the participants engaged in VRPT experiences either showing what it is like to become homeless or how ocean acidification affects the marine environment. A third of the participants were in the control condition and did not complete a VRPT task. Results replicate previous findings showing that VRPT tasks increase related context empathy and prosocial behaviors; however, the results on VRPTs effect on empathy and prosocial behaviors for unrelated contexts were mixed. The VRPT ocean acidification task was more effective at inducing empathy for the homeless, an unrelated social target, than the control condition, but the empathy-transfer effect did not occur from the homeless context to the ocean context. Replicating previous work, participants who experienced what it is like to become homeless signed a petition supporting the homeless at significantly higher rates than participants in the control condition. These findings show that transfer of empathy from one context to another is possible, but this transfer does not occur for all contexts.

Taking the perspective of others through the use of virtual reality (VR) technology increases empathy and reduces prejudice toward a myriad of social targets. The positive effects of VR perspective taking seem to be attributable to virtual embodiment and embodied cognition. For most of human history, we perceived our surroundings and functioned based on what our physical bodies were able to sense and do. Later, with the establishment of written language and symbols, we were able to expand our surroundings and learn regardless of whether or not physical bodies were present. Most of these VR systems work by replacing the perceptual input of the real world with perceptual input from the virtual environment in real time. This replacement is accomplished by: blocking out visual, auditory, and haptic feedback from the physical world; the continuous tracking of the user’s head and body movements; and the immediate rendering of virtual body and virtual environment in response to the user’s movements and behaviors.

This study focuses on the individual and joint contributions of two nonverbal channels (i.e., face and upper body) in avatar mediated-virtual environments. 140 dyads were randomly assigned to communicate with each other via platforms that differentially activated or deactivated facial and bodily nonverbal cues. The availability of facial expressions had a positive effect on interpersonal outcomes. More specifically, dyads that were able to see their partner’s facial movements mapped onto their avatars liked each other more, formed more accurate impressions about their partners, and described their interaction experiences more positively compared to those unable to see facial movements. However, the latter was only true when their partner’s bodily gestures were also available and not when only facial movements were available. Dyads showed greater nonverbal synchrony when they could see their partner’s bodily and facial movements. This study also employed machine learning to explore whether nonverbal cues could predict interpersonal attraction. These classifiers predicted high and low interpersonal attraction at an accuracy rate of 65%. These findings highlight the relative significance of facial cues compared to bodily cues on interpersonal outcomes in virtual environments and lend insight into the potential of automatically tracked nonverbal cues to predict interpersonal attitudes.

Virtual reality (VR) is a technology that is gaining traction in the consumer market. With it comes an unprecedented ability to track body motions. These body motions are diagnostic of personal identity, medical conditions, and mental states. Previous work has focused on the identifiability of body motions in idealized situations in which some action is chosen by the study designer. In contrast, our work tests the identifiability of users under typical VR viewing circumstances, with no specially designed identifying task. Out of a pool of 511 participants, the system identifies 95% of users correctly when trained on less than 5 min of tracking data per person. We argue these results show nonverbal data should be understood by the public and by researchers as personally identifying data.

This study explores the independent and joint effects of immersion and real-world distractions (a ringing cell phone) on cognitive (i.e., recognition and recall), affective valence, and interpersonal outcomes (i.e., interpersonal liking and communication satisfaction) as well as general feelings of presence (social presence and telepresence) during a virtual experience. Participants interacted with a virtual agent in an immersive virtual environment or nonimmersive virtual environment under three different levels of real-world distractions (i.e., no distraction, passively being exposed to the sound of a ringing cell phone, and actively responding to ringing cell phone). Increased immersion had a positive effect on telepresence, but a negative effect on recognition and recall; immersion did not have a significant effect on social presence. Real-world distractions had a negative effect on recognition, recall, and social presence, but did not affect telepresence or affective valence. Participants who were actively distracted performed more poorly on the recall measure and reported lower levels of social presence than their passively distracted counterparts. These findings suggest that (a) increased immersion will not uniformly improve social virtual reality experiences and (b) more research is needed on whether and how real-world events should be integrated into virtual environments.

There have been decades of research on the usability and educational value of augmented reality. However, less is known about how augmented reality affects social interactions. The current paper presents three studies that test the social psychological effects of augmented reality. Study 1 examined participants’ task performance in the presence of embodied agents and replicated the typical pattern of social facilitation and inhibition. Participants performed a simple task better, but a hard task worse, in the presence of an agent compared to when participants complete the tasks alone. Study 2 examined nonverbal behavior. Participants met an agent sitting in one of two chairs and were asked to choose one of the chairs to sit on. Participants wearing the headset never sat directly on the agent when given the choice of two seats, and while approaching, most of the participants chose the rotation direction to avoid turning their heads away from the agent. A separate group of participants chose a seat after removing the augmented reality headset, and the majority still avoided the seat previously occupied by the agent. Study 3 examined the social costs of using an augmented reality headset with others who are not using a headset. Participants talked in dyads, and augmented reality users reported less social connection to their partner compared to those not using augmented reality. Overall, these studies provide evidence suggesting that task performance, nonverbal behavior, and social connectedness are significantly affected by the presence or absence of virtual content.

Virtual Reality (VR) has been increasingly referred to as the "ultimate empathy machine" since it allows users to experience any situation from any point of view. However, empirical evidence supporting the claim that VR is a more effective method of eliciting empathy than traditional perspective-taking is limited. Two experiments were conducted in order to compare the short and long-term effects of a traditional perspective-taking task and a VR perspective-taking task (Study 1), and to explore the role of technological immersion when it comes to different types of mediated perspective-taking tasks (Study 2). Results of Study 1 show that over the course of eight weeks participants in both conditions reported feeling empathetic and connected to the homeless at similar rates, however, participants who became homeless in VR had more positive, longer-lasting attitudes toward the homeless and signed a petition supporting the homeless at a significantly higher rate than participants who performed a traditional perspective-taking task. Study 2 compared three different types of perspective-taking tasks with different levels of immersion (traditional vs. desktop computer vs. VR) and a control condition (where participants received fact-driven information about the homeless). Results show that participants who performed any type of perspective-taking task reported feeling more empathetic and connected to the homeless than the participants who only received information. Replicating the results from Study 1, there was no difference in self-report measures for any of the perspective-taking conditions, however, a significantly higher number of participants in the VR condition signed a petition supporting affordable housing for the homeless compared to the traditional and less immersive conditions. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.

Collaborative virtual environments (CVEs), wherein people can virtually interact with each other via avatars, are becoming increasingly prominent. However, CVEs differ in type of avatar representation and level of behavioral realism afforded to users. The present investigation compared the effect of behavioral realism on users' nonverbal behavior, self-presence, social presence, and interpersonal attraction during a dyadic interaction. Fifty-one dyads (aged 18 to 26) embodied either a full-bodied avatar with mapped hands and inferred arm movements, an avatar consisting of only a floating head and mapped hands, or a static full-bodied avatar. Planned contrasts compared the effect of behavioral realism against no behavioral realism, and compared the effect of low versus high behavioral realism. Results show that participants who embodied the avatar with only a floating head and hands experienced greater social presence, self-presence, and interpersonal attraction than participants who embodied a full-bodied avatar with mapped hands. In contrast, there were no significant differences on these measures between participants in the two mapped-hands conditions and those who embodied a static avatar. Participants in the static-avatar condition rotated their own physical head and hands significantly less than participants in the other two conditions during the dyadic interaction. Additionally, side-to-side head movements were negatively correlated with interpersonal attraction regardless of condition. We discuss implications of the finding that behavioral realism influences nonverbal behavior and communication outcomes.