Research Roundup (#27)
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Welcome...
Welcome to the twenty-seventh-ever Research Roundup! A fortnightly catch-up on the latest developments in the field of XR research.
It’s been a busy couple of weeks, so let's not hang around.
The Fortnight in 3 (Sentences)
- New research on the therapeutic benefits of VR explored whether VR interventions could reduce symptoms in real NHS neurorehabilitation patients, whether VR sculpting could decrease anxiety in university students, and what barriers and facilitators affect VR relaxation in psychiatric care settings.
- A wave of research this fortnight explored virtual humans and agents asking whether virtual humans could replace real teachers for oral assessments, providing open resources to allow LLM-powered agents to be integrated into XR environments, and asking whether virtual co-players could boost engagement in stroke rehabilitation.
- And finally, studies examining learning applications investigated how AR could enhance EFL learning, whether VR rhythm games could improve cognitive performance in esports athletes, and how VR compares to plastic models for anatomy education.
The Fortnight in 300-ish (words)
It's been a slow march towards implementation but the strength of the evidence for healthcare applications of VR mean more trials with ‘real’ patients are coming through. Most recently, researchers in England have reported on using VR to distract patients as part of their neurorehabilitation, successfully reducing pain and anxiety in those who completed the trial. Overall it was evaluated as feasible and acceptable, and where sessions were cancelled or refused it was due to pre-existing fatigue issues or not making the inclusion criteria. Small-scale, not without minor limitations, but encouraging.
As LLM-powered virtual agents continue to be integrated into XR experiences, it was great to see researchers from Italy comparing interactions with a virtual agent to a real human, and an ‘all alone’ baseline. Participants prepared a presentation for an oral assessment, making use of both a human teacher and a virtual teacher whilst practising. A range of self-report evaluations were collected as well as behavioural observations from the audio-video recordings. It was found that in some ways interactions with the virtual teacher were no different from the real one, such as effort, accuracy and usefulness. Perceived stress was higher for the virtual teacher, more like being alone, although it is noted that some differences depended on having positive attitudes towards virtual agents. Overall there is likely to be a complex interplay between the users attitudes to virtual agents when it comes to positive effects, no matter how good the tech.
And finally, regular readers will know that a month barely goes by without a mention of the all-conquering Beat Saber. This time researchers were interested in whether regular training, in Beat Saber, might improve cognitive performance more generally. 128 amateur e-athletes were allocated to either short-term training, long-term training or two control groups. Cognitive functions were measured immediately before, after, and one-month after again. Significant improvements were found in concentration and executive function after the VR training, regardless of whether it was short-term or long-term. These improvements were maintained at the one-month follow up (which isn't always the case). Impressive stuff, let the beat go on.