Development of a Data Management Tool for Investigating Multivariate Space and Free Will Experiences in Virtual Reality

摘要

Virtual Reality (VR) has become mature enough to be successfully used in clinical applications such as exposure therapy, pain distraction and neuropsychological assessment. However, we now need to go beyond the outcome data from this research and conduct the detailed scientific investigations required to better understand what factors influence why VR works (or doesn't) in these types of clinical applications. This knowledge is required to guide the development of VR applications in the key areas of education, training and rehabilitation and to further evolve existing VR approaches. One of the primary assets obtained with the use of VR is the ability to simulate the complexity of real world environments, within which human performance can be tested and trained. But this asset comes with a price in terms of the capture, quantification and analysis of large, multivariate and concurrent data sources that reflect the naturalistic behavioral interaction that is afforded in a virtual world. As well, while achieving realism has been a main goal in making convincing VR environments, just what constitutes realism and how much is needed is still an open question situated firmly in the research domain. Just as in real reality , such factors in virtual reality are complex and multivariate, and the understanding of this complexity presents exceptional challenges to the VR researcher. For certain research questions, good behavioral science often requires consistent delivery of stimuli within tightly controlled lab-based experimental conditions. However, for other important research questions we do not want to constrain naturalistic behavior and limit VR's ability to replicate real world conditions, simply because it is easier to study human performance with traditional lab-based methodologies. By doing so we may compromise the very qualities that comprise VR's unique capacity to mimic the experiences and challenges that exist in everyday life.