philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

Background

Virtual reality viewed using a head-mounted display (HMD-VR) has the potential to be a useful tool for motor learning and rehabilitation. However, when developing tools for these purposes, it is important to design applications that will effectively transfer to the real world. Therefore, it is essential to understand whether motor skills transfer between HMD-VR and conventional screen-based environments and what factors predict transfer.

Methods

We randomized 70 healthy participants into two groups. ...

Results

Our results suggest that motor skill acquisition of this task occurs at the same rate in both HMD-VR and conventional screen environments. However, the motor skills acquired in HMD-VR did not transfer to the screen environment. While this decrease in motor skill performance when moving to the screen environment was not significantly predicted by self-reported factors, there were trends for correlations with presence and previous HMD-VR experience. Conversely, motor skills acquired in a conventional screen environment not only transferred but improved in HMD-VR, and this increase in motor skill performance could be predicted by self-reported factors of presence, gender, age and video game use.

See the full story here: https://jneuroengrehab.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12984-020-00678-2?utm_source=other&utm_medium=other&utm_content=null&utm_campaign=BSCN_2_DD01_CN_bmcso_article_paid_XMOL