This study investigates the impact of an immersive virtual reality (VR) simulation of herd immunity on vaccination intentions and its potential underlying mechanisms. In this preregistered field study, N = 654 participants were randomly assigned to one of the three VR conditions: (1) Gamified Herd Immunity; (2) Gamified Herd Immunity + Empathy (with additional narrative elements); (3) Control (gamified with no vaccination-related content). In the Gamified Herd Immunity simulation, participants embodied a vulnerable person and navigated the wedding venue trying to avoid getting infected. A total of n = 455 participants with below maximum intentions to take a novel vaccine and without severe cybersickness symptoms were included in the analyses. The Gamified Herd Immunity + Empathy and the Gamified Herd Immunity conditions increased vaccination intentions by 6.68 and 7.06 points on a 0-100 scale, respectively, compared to 1.91 for the Control condition. The Gamified Herd Immunity + Empathy condition enhanced empathy significantly more than the Gamified Herd Immunity condition but did not result in higher vaccination intentions. The results suggest that immersive VR vaccination communication can effectively increase COVID-19 vaccine intentions; the effect is not solely a consequence of the technological experience itself and does not depend on empathy.

To study the shape of objects using geometric morphometrics, landmarks are oftentimes collected digitally from a 3D scanned model.The expert may annotate landmarks using software that visualizes the 3D model on a flat screen, and interaction is achieved with a mouse and a keyboard.However, landmark annotation of a 3D model on a 2D display is a tedious process and potentially introduces error due to the perception and interaction limitations of the flat interface.In addition, digital landmark placement can be more time-consuming than direct annotation on the physical object using a tactile digitizer arm.18 19 20 21 22 23Since virtual reality (VR) is designed to more closely resemble the real world, we present a VR prototype for annotating landmarks on 3D models.We study the impact of VR on annotation performance by comparing our VR prototype to Stratovan Checkpoint, a commonly used commercial desktop software.We use an experimental setup, where four operators placed six landmarks on six grey seal (Halichoerus grypus) skulls in six trials for both systems.This enables us to investigate multiple sources of measurement error.We analyse both for the configuration and for single landmarks.24 25 26 27 28 29Our analysis shows that annotation in VR is a promising alternative to desktop annotation.We find that annotation precision is comparable between the two systems, with VR being significantly more precise for one of the landmarks.We do not find evidence that annotation in VR is faster than on the desktop, but it is accurate.

ybersickness has been one of the main impediments to the widespread adoption of Virtual Reality for decades. It has been argued that several factors can influence the occurrence of cybersickness, such as technical factors, interaction design, but also users’ demographics and their perceived presence. Yet, previous studies had comparably small sample sizes and demographically homogeneous samples; comparisons across studies (e.g., regarding demographic factors) are challenging due to the large variation in the studied virtual environments. In this paper, we address these limitations and report the results of a lab-in-the-field experiment on cybersickness with a large and heterogeneous sample of $N =837$ participants who navigated and interacted inside a virtual environment (ages 18–80, $M = 29.34, SD = 9.50$, 431 males, 400 females, 6 non-binaries and other). We found that female participants and participants with lower VR experience were more susceptible to experiencing higher levels of cybersickness. Participants’ cybersickness levels increased with the time spent in VR and with the distance traversed in the virtual world up to a point, above which reported levels declined. We also found a link between higher levels of cybersickness and reduced head motion, as well as between lower levels of cybersickness and more head motion, which led them to explore more of the virtual environment. In contrast to past studies, we did not find any evidence suggesting an effect of age on cybersickness, nor a negative correlation between presence and cybersickness. Based on our results, we derived a model that achieves a mean classification accuracy of 67.1% for two levels of cybersickness using demographic, user experience, and behavioral data in VR.

Background. Vaccine hesitancy poses one of the biggest threats to global health. Informing people about the collective benefit of vaccination due to community immunity has great potential in increasing vaccination intentions. Novel communication formats are needed to increase people’s interest in and engagement with such information, boosting the intervention’s effectiveness. This research investigates the potential for virtual reality (VR) to strengthen participants’ understanding of community immunity, and therefore, their intention to get vaccinated.Methods and Findings. In this pre-registered lab-in-the-field intervention study, participants (n= 222) were recruited in a public park. They either experienced the collective benefit of community immunity in a gamified immersive virtual reality environment (2/3 of sample), or received the same information via text and images (1/3 of sample). Before and after the intervention, participants indicated their intention to take up a hypothetical vaccine for a new COVID-19 strain (0–100 scale) and belief in vaccination as a collective responsibility (1–7 scale). After the VR treatment, for participants with imperfect vaccination intention, intention increases by 9.3 points (95% CI:7.0 to 11.5, p <0.001). The text-and-image treatment increases vaccination intention by 3.3 points (difference in effects: 5.8, 95% CI: 2.0 to 9.5, p= 0.003). The VR treatment also increases collective responsibility by 0.82 points (95% CI: 0.37 to 1.27, p <0.001). A key limitation of the study is that it measures vaccination attitudes, but not behavior.Conclusions. VR is an effective tool for increasing vaccination intention, more so than text and images, by eliciting collective responsibility. The results suggest that VR interventions can be applied “in the wild” and may thus provide a complementary method for vaccine advocacy

To study the shape of objects using geometric morphometrics, landmarks are oftentimes collected digitally from a 3D scanned model. The expert may annotate landmarks using software that visualizes the 3D model on a flat screen, and interaction is achieved with a mouse and a keyboard. However, landmark annotation of a 3D model on a 2D display is a tedious process and potentially introduces error due to the perception and interaction limitations of the flat interface. In addition, digital landmark placement can be more time-consuming than direct annotation on the physical object using a tactile digitizer arm. Since virtual reality (VR) is designed to more closely resemble the real world, we present a VR prototype for annotating landmarks on 3D models. We study the impact of VR on annotation performance by comparing our VR prototype to Stratovan Checkpoint, a commonly used commercial desktop software. We use an experimental setup, where four operators placed six landmarks on six grey seal (Halichoerus grypus) skulls in six trials for both systems. This enables us to investigate multiple sources of measurement error. We analyse both for the configuration and for single landmarks. Our analysis shows that annotation in VR is a promising alternative to desktop annotation. We find that annotation precision is comparable between the two systems, with VR being significantly more precise for one of the landmarks. We do not find evidence that annotation in VR is faster than on the desktop, but it is accurate.

Effective interventions for increasing people's intention to get vaccinated are crucial for global health, especially considering COVID-19. We devised a novel intervention using virtual reality (VR) consisting of a consultation with a general practitioner for communicating the benefits of COVID-19 vaccination and, in turn, increasing the intention to get vaccinated against COVID-19. We conducted a preregistered online experiment with a 2×2 between-participant design. People with eligible VR headsets were invited to install our experimental application and complete the ten minute virtual consultation study at their own discretion. Participants were randomly assigned across two age conditions (young or old self-body) and two communication conditions (with provision of personal benefit of vaccination only, or collective and personal benefit). The primary outcome was vaccination intention (score range 1-100) measured three times: immediately before and after the study, as well as one week later. Five-hundred-and-seven adults not vaccinated against COVID-19 were recruited. Among the 282 participants with imperfect vaccination intentions (<100), the VR intervention increased pre-to-post vaccination intentions across intervention conditions (mean difference 8.6, 95% CI 6.1 to 11.1,p<0.0001). The pre-to-post difference significantly correlated with the vaccination intention one week later, ρ=0.20,p<0.0001. The VR intervention was effective in increasing COVID-19 vaccination intentions both when only personal benefits and personal and collective benefits of vaccination were communicated, with significant retention one week after the intervention. Utilizing recent evidence from health psychology and embodiment research to develop immersive environments with customized and salient communication efforts could therefore be an effective tool to complement public health campaigns.