Edited by: Alexander Toet, Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research, Netherlands
Reviewed by: Thomas A. Stoffregen, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, United States; Pascual Gonzalez, University of Castilla-La Mancha, Spain
This article was submitted to Human-Media Interaction, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychology
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Virtual reality (VR) has become a popular tool for investigating human behavior and brain functions. Nevertheless, it is unclear whether VR constitutes an actual form of reality or is more like an advanced simulation. Determining the nature of VR has been mostly achieved by self-reported presence measurements, defined as the feeling of being submerged in the experience. However, subjective measurements might be prone to bias and, most importantly, do not allow for a comparison with real-life experiences. Here, we show that real-life and VR height exposures using 3D-360° videos are mostly indistinguishable on a psychophysiological level (EEG and HRV), while both differ from a conventional 2D laboratory setting. Using a fire truck, three groups of participants experienced a real-life (
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Getting into touch with virtual reality (VR), there is one fundamental question that arises immediately: How real is VR? The answer to that question will decide whether VR will only be considered an advanced form of computer technology, a next-generation PC, or if there is a categorical difference between VR and conventional (immersive) media experiences. The answer to this question is crucial for the application of VR for scientific purposes as a tool for learning and for therapeutic purposes.
However, at first glance, the question itself, whether VR is real, seems redundant, as the technology is labeled being a type of “reality” as most users describe an immersive experience. Surprisingly, there is little objective scientific evidence to support these introspective reports and there is little reason to believe that mounting a sophisticated monitor to the forehead indeed leads to an experience that can be considered a form of reality. By contrast, 3D cinema is not considered to create a form of reality albeit highly immersive. Whether VR actually can be considered “being real” is particularly difficult to answer as there is no technique or experiment to directly measure its reality or to derive its ability to create a feeling of reality from its technical properties. It is not possible to accurately quantify the degree to which a virtual reality (VR) experience might be perceived as “real” by an individual as this is a subjective question that depends on the individual’s perceptions. While there are various methods and techniques that can be used to measure brain activity and behavior in relation to VR experiences, these do not directly provide insights into an individual’s subjective experience of reality
Consequently, the benchmark for assessing VR simulation quality can only be the user’s phenomenal consciousness, i.e., the subjective experience of being aware of one’s thoughts, feelings, and perceptions. Specifically, the crucial point is whether the brain can create an alternative reality from the sensory input provided by the VR device so that the brain itself regards this reality as sufficiently real overruling and replacing the physical reality it is actually situated in. To put it differently, the question is whether the sensory input provided by a VR headset is sufficient to create a phenomenal consciousness that is similar to or even indistinguishable from one constructed from real-life sensory input. Contemporary approaches determining the validity of virtual experiences follow this line of thought. One key aspect of VR is the feeling of being physically present in a scene, called “presence” (
Defining presence as the sensation of “being there” is the most common understanding of the concept, while its definition is widely debated (
Presence is typically a self-reported judgment, surveyed after a VR session using standardized questionnaires (
Overcoming these limitations of subjective post-induction measurements, the behavior during the virtual experience provides valid insights into the simulation’s realism [
Determining VR’s degree of reality requires a triad. Not only the potential overlap between virtual and physical reality needs to be scientifically quantified, but also both need to be distinguished from conventional 2D computer simulations. Otherwise, it remains unclear which behavioral and physiological markers are hallmarks of realistic psychological functioning (see, e.g.,
The study at hand aims to identify reliable electrophysiological, physiological, and subjective markers that distinguish between different degrees of reality in an environment that was experienced in physical reality, virtual reality by means of photorealistic 3D-360° videos, or conventional media. As a result, the study allows us to conclude to what degree virtual reality can be regarded as real. A height exposure paradigm was chosen to juxtapose these levels of reality for the following reasons: Reactions to virtual height exposure have been of interest from the very beginning of VR research and can to some extent be considered a classical application (
To maintain experimental control under realistic conditions as much as possible and to minimize motion artifacts that could significantly affect the quality of the EEG data, the method of choice was a fire truck bringing the participants up to a height of 33 m (
Photographs from the real-life setting:
The rationale of this approach might at first glance seem at odds with the study’s aim to delimit VR settings from conventional screen experiences, but takes up a central thought about the nature of VR. In a devil’s advocate approach, all aspects of the experience which might factor into the sensation of reality were held constant—except the visual VR impression. The PC condition’s big screen occupying most of the participant’s field of view leads to low-level immersion [sometimes even referred to as desktop-VR, see
Following the general narrative of VR, we hypothesized that the difference in perceived realism should primarily manifest in a feeling of physical and emotional involvement, with reality being the most stressful experience as opposed to 2D being the least stressful one. VR was hypothesized to be somewhere between the two poles of this continuous scale of reality.
On a subjective level, self-reporting questionnaires should indicate the stronger presence and emotional involvement along this scale. Cardiovascular and electrophysiological measurements serve as objective markers. Heart rate variability (HRV) denotes the time variance between heartbeats (
Among other biomarkers such as hormone secretion, vasoconstriction of blood vessels, and increased blood pressure, the HRV reflects the “fight-or-flight” reaction (
The power of cortical alpha- (8–12 Hz), theta- (4–7 Hz), and lower beta-band (15–20 Hz) oscillations were selected as electrophysiological markers for further investigation. Alpha and theta power are sensitive to stress, arousal, and anxiety (
Both, alpha- and theta-band oscillations have been proven effective for evaluating emotional arousal and stress in VR setups (
In summary, our study aims at determining to what degree virtual reality simulates real-life experiences by comparing a virtual height exposure to corresponding real-life and a 2D monitor setup. Among other criteria, foremost the benchmark was whether the cognitive and emotional processes deployed by the brain to process the virtual experience resemble the ones in real-life or the monitor condition. Specifically, we investigated objective markers of emotional arousal, i.e., tonic alterness or vigilance, the regulation thereof, and the haptic processing by means of EEG and HRV, respectively.
Seventy-nine participants were recruited from the Osnabrück University. The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by the local ethics committee of Osnabrück University. Participants gave their informed written consent. They were screened for psychological and neurological disorders using a standard screening (anamnesis) and were excluded from participation if they suffered from a respective condition (e.g., affective disorders or epilepsy). All had a normal or corrected-to-normal vision. Five participants were excluded from the analysis due to insufficient data quality (
Participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: real-life (RL), virtual reality (VR), or computer screen (PC). The conditions were measured in a block-wise manner per condition as the measurements of the RL condition depended on the cooperating fire department’s schedule. However, the participants did not know in advance in which condition they would participate.
Participants were elevated in the firefighter’s basket of a fire truck up to 33 m height at a relatively remote and quiet part of the university’s campus (see
The 3D-360° videos used for the VR condition were recorded with the Insta360Pro VR camera (Insta360, Shenzhen, China), at a frame rate of 60 fps, 4k resolution, and spatial sound. To cope with different weather conditions, wind force, changes in the environment, and time of day, the camera was set up on each day of the RL condition two to three times for recording. The elevation of the camera was performed exactly as with participants: the camera was accompanied by the same firefighter in full uniform, turning his back on the camera and not speaking at all. A total of 10 videos of the ride in the fire truck’s basket were recorded, two of which were not further used due to disturbed audio recording.
Participants in the VR condition were equipped with an HTC Vive Cosmos (HTC, Taoyuan, Taiwan) head-mounted display (HMD) which allows for a 3D-360° view and head tracking. The Cosmos HMD provides a resolution of 1440 × 1700 pixels per eye and spatial sound.
The videos were presented using the Simple VR video player (Simplevr.pro, Los Angeles, CA, USA). To enhance immersion and provide haptic feedback as similar as possible to the RL condition, participants were standing in a replica of the firefighter’s basket during the VR ride in the fire truck’s basket. The replica of the firefighter’s basket corresponded to the real basket in appearance and size and was positioned on unsteady ground. A fan was used to simulate wind.
The very same video recordings as for the VR condition were used but presented in 2D instead of 3D-360°. The videos were presented in full-screen mode using GoPro VR Player (GoPro Inc, San Mateo, CA, USA). Participants were able to look around the video using the arrow keys on a conventional keyboard. Participants were positioned in front of an 86″ wide smartboard (SMART SBID-7086-v2; SMART Technologies ULC, Calgary, AB, Canada). The smartboard provided a resolution of 4k (3840 × 2160 pixels) and a frame rate of 60 fps. Equivalent to the VR condition, participants were standing in the same replica of the firefighter’s basket on unsteady ground, and a fan was used for wind simulation. The replica was positioned at a distance of 150 cm from the smartboard, resulting in a horizontal viewing angle of 2 × 32.33°.
The experiment consisted of two appointments with a duration of approximately 75 min at the first and approximately 15 min at the second appointment. The ride in the fire truck’s basket was carried out during the first appointment. During the second appointment, the participants’ mood regarding the past ride in the fire truck’s basket was surveyed.
Before the ride in the fire truck’s basket (t0), participants filled in the German versions of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS,
The mobile EEG and the ECG were applied by the test leaders (see Section “2.3.1. Electrophysiological recordings and preprocessing”). Afterward, the participants were led to the firetruck’s basket (real or replica). The participants saw neither the real basket nor the replica at any earlier time.
Participants were asked to stand still for 30 s facing the firetruck’s basket for ECG baseline measurement. The baseline of 30 s was chosen to determine the participants’ current state immediately before the ride in the basket. HRV is conventionally determined beginning at 5 min intervals, especially with respect to the diagnosis of cardiovascular disease (
Directly after the ride in the fire truck’s basket (t1), participants filled in the German versions of the Igroup Presence Questionnaire (IPQ,
On the third day after the ride in the fire truck’s basket (t2, second appointment), the participants were asked to return to the laboratory to fill in the PANAS again and were debriefed.
For the EEG data acquisition, the mobile EEG system LiveAmp32 by Brain Products (Gilching, Germany) with active electrodes was used. The electrodes were applied in accordance with the international 10–20 system. An online reference (FCz) and ground electrode (AFz) were applied. A threshold of 25 kΩ is recommended for the used EEG system and the thresholds of 25, 20, and 15 kΩ have successfully been applied in previous studies using the same mobile EEG equipment (
The EEG data were pre-processed using MATLAB (version R2020b, MathWorks Inc) and EEGLAB (
Artifact correction was performed per epoch by means of the “Fully Automated Statistical Thresholding for EEG artifact Reduction” (FASTER,
To isolate the theta-band (4–7 Hz), alpha-band (8–13 Hz), and lower beta-band (15–20 Hz) specific activity, each band power was calculated using a windowed fast Fourier transform (FFT). A hamming window with a length of 1 s and 50% overlap of the windows was applied. The mean FFT scores were calculated per electrode, logarithmized, and squared to determine the respective band power [ln(μV2)].
A three-channel ECG was applied and transmitted to the mobile EEG system
The ECG data were segmented into epochs corresponding to the EEG epochs using MATLAB and further preprocessed using Brain Vision Analyzer. They were filtered between 5 and 45 Hz. A notch filter (50 Hz) was applied. An automatic R-peak detection was applied and counterchecked per visual inspection. The classical HRV parameters standard deviation of RR intervals (SDRR) and root mean square of successive differences (rmSSD) were calculated per phase (baseline, ascend, highest point, and descend) using MATLAB. The HRV parameters differed significantly between groups during baseline (see Section “3. Results”). To cope with these baseline differences, the individual changes in SDRR and rmSSD compared to the baseline were calculated for further analysis (delta = phase value − baseline value).
The statistical analyses were carried out using SPSS version 26. All variables were tested for normal distribution regarding the separate groups using the Shapiro–Wilk test. All further statistical tests were chosen accordingly (see
The scales of the questionnaires were calculated as sum scales. Concerning the PANAS, the scores for positive and negative affects concerning the time points before the ride in the fire truck’s basket (t0), directly after the ride (t1), and 3 days after (t2) were calculated. In addition, the change in affect was calculated as the difference between the pre-measurement and both post-measurements (change t1 = t1 − t0; change t2 = t2 − t0). PANAS, STAI, AQ, and IPQ were analyzed using the Kruskal–Wallis test and complemented by
Duration of the ride: To ensure that all participants experienced the ride in the fire truck’s basket for the same duration, the timing of the ride was compared using the Kruskal–Wallis test separately per phase as well as cumulated for the total ride.
Electrophysiological and cardiovascular measures: The EEG data and the HRV parameters were analyzed using the Kruskal–Wallis test and complemented by the
To provide statistical evidence for the equality of measures, we used the Wilcoxon two one-sided test (TOST) (1) as a robust equivalence test for all non-significant comparisons (
We calculated the largest difference between groups in the baseline to determine the smallest SESOI for the comparisons in the alpha, theta, and beta bands. The rationale behind this approach is that for a difference between groups to be meaningful, i.e., being based on more than the simple baseline differences between the conditions, it has to surpass the largest differences present in the baseline. Hence, for alpha, we used 0.5199 ln(μV2), for theta 0.7455 ln(μV2), and for beta 0.4555 ln(μV2) (see also
Average topographic oscillatory power amplitude [ln(μV2)] distribution across participants by frequency band (rows) and conditions (columns) while staying at the highest point of the ride in the fire trucks basket. The pictograms in the last row depict the experimental setup per condition. See
The duration of the separate phases as well as of the total ride did not differ between groups. The ascend took 2.5 min on average [
All groups were equal with respect to trait anxiety, fear of height, avoidance of height, as well as positive and negative affects before the ride in the fire truck’s basket [all
However, participants reported different sensations of presence, positive affect, and change in positive affect directly after the ride in the fire truck’s basket as well as 3 days later as a function of the experimental condition [all
In particular, the RL group reported higher levels of general presence, spatial presence, and realness compared to both, VR and PC groups (all
Moreover, the RL group experienced a stronger positive affect and reported higher changes in positive affect at t1 and t2 compared to both other groups (all
Overall, the Kruskal–Wallis test indicated significant differences between groups regarding each phase and each aforementioned frequency range [all
The RL group and the VR group exhibited similar levels of alpha and theta powers during all phases of the ride in the firetruck’s basket, significantly differing in beta power and during baseline in theta power only (all
In more detail, the RL group exhibited considerably greater alpha- and theta-band powers compared to the PC group regarding all phases, but only slightly and non-significantly different levels compared to the VR group (all
Median band power [ln(μV2)] per group, phase, and frequency band. Negative power values result from the logarithmic transformation during preprocessing: The logarithm of values greater than zero and smaller than one is negative. Hence, negative power values are to be read as smaller power compared to positive power values. The respective tables indicate the statistical characteristics per comparison in a reduced overview. Significant differences between groups are marked respectively (*
Wilcoxon TOST results for non-significant comparisons.
TOST | |||||
Alpha | Base | RLVR | 207 | 0.032 | 0.277 |
VRPC | 209 | 0.035 | 0.237 | ||
Ascend | RLVR | 84 | <0.001 | -0.023 | |
High | RLVR | 125 | <0.001 | 0.027 | |
Descend | RLPC | 219 | 0.036 | 0.331 | |
VRPC | 190 | 0.014 | 0.38 | ||
Theta | Base | VRPC | 109 | <0.001 | 0.297 |
Ascend | RLVR | 50 | <0.001 | 0.067 | |
High | RLVR | 75 | <0.001 | 0.167 | |
Descend | RLVR | 100 | <0.001 | 0.27 | |
Beta | Base | VRPC | 182 | 0.009 | 0.08 |
Wilcoxon TOST (W) of the upper equivalence bound and rank-biserial correlations as effect size. In rank-biserial correlations, zero indicates no relationship between the variables, positive values indicate the dominance of the first sample with 1 meaning that all values of the first sample are larger than all values of the second sample, and negative values indicate the dominance of the second sample, with −1 being the total dominance. Except this table, all tables reporting detailed statistics can be found in the
See
The groups exhibited significant differences in SDRR [
For an in-depth analysis, the HRV parameters were calculated and analyzed for the separate phases and corrected for baseline differences (delta = HRV during respective phase minus HRV during baseline; see also
Changes in the HRV parameters SDRR
The study aimed to determine to what degree emotional and cognitive processing in virtual reality resembles the corresponding mechanisms deployed in a real-life setting as opposed to conventional laboratory conditions using objective markers. In turn, this allows estimating to which degree VR provides adequate sensory input for the brain from which it can construct a form of reality that it itself regards to be sufficient.
To this end, we set up a height exposure paradigm in which we shifted the degree of reality from a 2D monitor presentation to a VR simulation to a real experience in a parametric fashion. The premise by which it was assessed whether the VR experience can be considered sufficiently real to mimic a real-life experience was the simulation’s emotional potency. The real and the 2D monitor experience serve as the two opposite poles of a reality scale with VR located somewhere in between. The participants’ emotional experiences were indexed by several subjective measurements and further complemented by an objective measure of the ANS response (HRV), as well as electrophysiological correlates of arousal (alpha-band), emotion regulation (theta-band), and somatosensory processes (beta-band). The results shed new light on virtual experiences and confirm the introspective (or anecdotical) reports of VR users and scientific studies presuming that VR elicits real emotions while leaving a margin for further technological improvements on the somatosensory level.
Statistically speaking, the real-life condition and the virtual condition exhibit numerous non-significant differences across questionnaires and psychophysiological measurements, while they both differ from the PC condition. The overall pattern supports the notion that participants in real-life and virtual reality conditions generally exhibit the same level of alpha and theta powers (see below). Thus, when discussing the outcome of the study, the overall pattern of results is taken into consideration and not a single result is either significant or non-significant. Splitting the data into several phases makes the data more difficult to interpret and leads to a loss of statistical power, however, investigating the dynamic unfolding of cognitive and emotional processes with respect to the phases of the experiment (baseline, ascend, peak, and descend) seemed preferable to us from a scientific perspective. The baseline measurements foremost yield the weakest effects between VR and RL implying that with the increasing arousal from the height exposure, the differences between VR and RL seem to diminish. Therefore, the degree of reality that VR can evoke is closely related to its ability to evoke situational emotional responses.
In line with previous research, the VR condition generally elicited a stronger feeling of presence as opposed to the monitor condition. While immersive media like VR primarily might invoke presence using the perception of an enveloping space, they yet invoke realistic, most likely bottom-up mediated, responses (
For the sake of completeness, we also obtained data for the real-life condition, showing that presence is highest for this condition. However, we suggest discarding this data as uninterpretable as the questionnaire is not meant for real-life application, and some questions cannot be answered meaningfully (
Since our setting was only limitedly interactive, it restricted the possibility to express behaviors. However, this restriction especially of body movements was desired to interfere as little as possible with the EEG measurement. Yet, the participants were not completely passive in this setting: They were able to control their field of view either by head-motion (RL and VR) which offered high interaction fidelity between both conditions (
As
The comparison of the emotional responses between the three groups revealed an ambiguous pattern. Whereas positive affect differs substantially between all three conditions over time, negative affect did not differ at all. The ride thus was thrilling but perceived as a safe experience.
Interestingly, the pattern is reversed for the measurements obtained 3 days later. In retrospect, participants in the real and the VR condition rated their experience equally positive, whereas both groups differ from the PC condition. In contrast to the first pattern, this could indeed be interpreted as an indicator of VR being able to evoke real-life emotional responses. The PC condition, however, deviates. These contradicting results can be resolved by taking recruitment into account. To ensure that the collected data would come from a homogeneous sample, especially with respect to fear of heights, all participants were told that they would experience a real trip. Two groups of participants had to be disappointed, which might decrease the validity of the t1 data. The meaningfulness of the data regarding the perception of reality could be overshadowed by the disappointment of having missed a real ride.
Against the background of VR memory studies (
Although emotional memory provides a good starting point for evaluating VR’s realness, online measures are needed to draw a clear picture of the participants’ mental stress during the ride. To assess the level of reality, VR, and PC simulations, the HRV functions as a marker for stress imposed by the conditions on the autonomic nervous system (ANS,
Two measures are used to evaluate the variance of the RR intervals; the standard deviation (SDRR) and the root mean square of successive RR interval differences (rmSSD). Both measures are commonly employed and appropriate ultra-short time measurements (<5 min) (
The reported data are baseline corrected; however, another baseline was chosen as opposed to the questionnaires to circumvent the anticipated problem of disappointment. To assess the ride’s emotional efficacy, the baseline was measured while standing in front of the fire truck basket or the replica, making it clear to the participants what they had to expect. While this approach avoids the problems already mentioned, on the downside, it does not provide an entirely emotionally neutral baseline. The participants would joyfully expect a real ride or be aware that they would participate in an unconventional but neutral experiment. The very nature of this unconventional experiment makes it impossible to find the ideal baseline.
As higher HRV scores indicate relaxation and lower scores indicate stress, a baseline-corrected negative score indicates an increase in stress and a positive score indicates relaxation. The responses in all phases are identical for the SDRR showing that the stress response did not differ between the real and the VR condition. The rmSSD followed the same trend, except for the response at the highest point. Both groups differed significantly from the PC condition in all phases and both measures: The baseline-corrected data indicate an elevated stress response in the PC condition and a likewise light to neutral stress response in the real and virtual conditions.
This overall pattern unfolds the temporal dynamic of the emotional experiences. The significance pattern for the SDRR phase analysis confirms the first impression that the real and virtual conditions are indistinguishable in terms of ANS responses. Positive scores for both conditions in the ascend even increasing in the peak phase, corresponding to the overall positive PANAS ratings, indicate a vagotonic state of the ANS, associated with relaxation or a positive mood (
As an interim conclusion, the HRV data corresponds to self-reported emotional memory, revealing the same equivalence pattern of the real and virtual domains in distinction to the PC condition at t2. They thus confirm a previous VR video study providing the first evidence that heart rate and by that the visceral ANS stress response to VR environments corresponds to real-life responses much more than to conventional laboratory settings (
While the HRV analysis provides robust evidence for a somatic level of arousal, the EEG analysis is more conclusive over a wider variety of cognitive, emotional, and somatosensory processes. Interestingly, the overall picture indicates that the EEG result parallels what a naive VR user would have suspected: The emotional responses elicited by the real-life and the virtual experience are indistinguishable on an electrophysiological level as the alpha- and theta-band oscillations do not yield significant differences. However, the participants’ somatosensory experiences differed between all three conditions as indexed by beta-band oscillations.
First of all, it should be noted that we employed a robust methodological approach at the expense of the EEG’s already limited ability to identify the neural underpinning of the obtained signal. Thus, a distinct functional attribution of the respective oscillations remains speculative to a certain degree and leaves a margin for further improvements. Importantly, a more precise classification of the functional properties does not necessarily augment the epistemological value of this particular study. The brain’s oscillatory response to VR by means of 3D-360° videos resembles the response to a real-life event in two of the three selected frequency bands. Regarding alpha and theta band powers, the equivalence tests (TOST) strongly indicate that the effects for RL and VR are equivalent. On the other side, differences between RL and PC as well as VR and PC mainly exhibit strong effects.
Generally, as alpha-band oscillations are correlating with emotional arousal (
As an intermediate conclusion, the PANAS questionnaire (at t2), the HRV measurements, and the alpha and theta oscillations indicate—individually and in conjunction—that emotions elicited in VR resemble real-life emotions. The study thus fills the gap in VR research showing that VR simulations elicit strong realistic emotions (
However, the beta-band results exhibit a different pattern: All three conditions differ from each other. As mentioned in the introduction, the beta-band has also been associated with emotional processes, but as all previously discussed metrics imply emotional equivalence between VR and real-life scenarios, the somatosensory account seems to be preferable. Technically speaking, the experiment was a mixed reality (MR) setup as the study aimed to minimize the perceptual differences between all three conditions by including physical cues, e.g., a wobbly basket replica and wind simulation. All three conditions still exhibited unique somatosensory characteristics: especially the HMD sticks out. Only the participants in the VR condition had additional weight mounted on the head, influencing proprioceptive perception. It is unclear to what extent VR (or MR) environments need to physically resemble a corresponding real-world scenario to mitigate such somatosensory differences. Lighter HMDs, synthetic skin mimicking touch sensation (
Alternatively, ongoing beta activity is associated with subsequent memory formation success, independent of stimulus modality (
The study has shown that today’s VR setups using photorealistic 3D-360° experiences fulfill the essential prerequisites for the emergence of a feeling of reality and paves the way for a more in-depth examination of the relevant cognitive and emotional processes as well as the technological features of VR giving rise to them. Furthermore, the study provides a scientific framework for developing recreational, educational, and therapeutic VR applications. Scientists might proportionally benefit from the enhanced ecological validity achieved by VR. Psychological processes can be studied under previously unprecedented realistic conditions in controlled laboratory conditions (
For practical reasons, our study investigated only one scenario under real-life, VR, and monitor conditions. It is yet unclear to which condition or other scenarios our results generalize. As the Introduction section mentioned, height exposures are classic immersive VR experiences leveraging all its affordances. Future research should investigate less immersive and less arousing scenarios to determine a cutoff where VR and PC might be on the same level, both differing from reality. However, the conclusions drawn from our study are in line with previous VR studies from various fields inferring the degree of reality of virtual reality from behavioral observations (see Section “1. Introduction”). The generalizability of our research thus should be given and is presumably higher than the generalizability of monitor experiments.
The HRV baseline chosen for the experiment was not free of induction. Standing in front of the fire truck expecting to go up naturally led to increased arousal. The rationale behind this approach was to correct for any condition’s specific arousal by subtracting this baseline from the HRV during the ride. However, an induction-free baseline might shed a more differentiated light on the temporal dynamics of the arousal during the experience.
The participant in the experiment had no task but was passively exposed to the height. Thus, tying the electrophysiological responses to mental states is speculative beyond very basic functions. Nonetheless, due to the very simple measurements, future research should include behavior and investigate task-specific neural oscillation for that reason.
The datasets presented in this study can be found in online repositories. The names of the repository/repositories and accession number(s) can be found below: The data sets generated and analyzed during the current study are available in the Open Science Framework (OSF) repository:
The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by Local Ethics Committee of Osnabrück University. The participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.
JK, SS, and LL performed the testing and data collection. JK, SS, and LL performed the data analyses under the supervision of BS. BS performed the data interpretation and drafted the manuscript. JK, LL, TG, and RO provided the critical revisions. BS, JK, LL, TG, SS, and RO contributed to the study design based on an idea by BS. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript for submission.
We acknowledged the support of Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and the Open Access Publishing Fund of Osnabrück University.
We thank the voluntary fire brigade Osnabrück-Neustadt (Osnabrück, Germany) for making it possible to conduct this study. In particular, we thank Christoph Plogmann, Martin Brug, Niels Giebel, and Marcel Beste for their significant support. Furthermore, we also thank the members of the Department of Biology/Chemistry, Osnabrück University, especially Prof. Jacob Piehler and Dr. Stefan Walter, for offering their facilities for the duration of the real-life condition data collection.
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: