THE VALIDITY OF USING VIRTUAL REALITY HEAD-MOUNTED DISPLAY FOR AGILITY TRAINING

Virtual reality (VR) provides a fully controlled environment with the potential of making sports training easier. However, to date very few studies concerned creating a locomotion training environment enabling multi-directional movements for mimicking realistic locomotion. This study aims to investigate the validity of using low-cost VR head-mounted display (HMD) for agility training in a virtual environment (VE) for ‘real-walking’ locomotion. Three male college participants (age: 24.00±1.00years, height: 1.68±0.09m, weight: 65.63±4.65kg) participated in this study. They were asked to complete two agility ladder training tasks: the forward and backward icky shuffle, in the real environment (RE) and VE. The correlations of the segment trajectories in the RE and VE were calculated, respectively. Moreover, the correlations of the segment trajectories between the two environments were also calculated. The z-test results show that no significant difference has been obtained in the consistency of the movements between the two environments. Also, high correlations in the segment trajectories were obtained between the virtual and real training environment. The results indicate that it is feasible to use VR HMD for agility training

Investigating the Use of Augmented Reality to Enhance the Indoor Running Experience on a Treadmill

This article presents a research study focused on investigating the use of augmented reality to enhance the indoor running experience on a treadmill. The rapid advancements in augmented reality technology offer exciting opportunities to revolutionize traditional exercise routines and provide users with an immersive and engaging workout environment. This study aims to explore the potential benefits and challenges associated with integrating augmented reality into treadmill running, ultimately seeking to improve motivation, enjoyment, and overall fitness outcomes. The research goals of this study encompass three primary areas: understanding user perception and experience, evaluating physical performance improvements, and examining the impact on psychological factors. The findings of this research study will contribute to the growing body of knowledge on the use of augmented reality in fitness and exercise domains. The results will shed light on the potential benefits and limitations of augmented reality enhanced treadmill running, informing the development of future applications and interventions. Moreover, the study will offer valuable insights into user preferences, perception, and motivation, enabling designers and developers to create more tailored and engaging augmented reality experiences for indoor exercise enthusiasts. This research study aims to explore the integration of augmented reality into treadmill running to enhance the indoor running experience. By investigating user perception, physical performance improvements, and psychological impacts, the study seeks to uncover the potential of augmented reality as a tool to motivate and engage individuals in their fitness journeys on the treadmill

User Experience of Virtual Reality-Based Digital Sports: A Topic Modeling Approach

Digital technologies have been found to transform our society. During and after the COVID-19 pandemic, more and more people have started their usage of digital sports. However, little research has provided a deep understanding of the user experience of digital sports at the individual participant level. To address the research gap, this study explores how virtual reality (VR)-based digital sports satisfy users’ innate needs based on the psychological needs of humans and self-determination theory. By conducting a topic modeling with 11,676 tweets generated by VR-based digital golf participation users from Twitter, we identified some elements within VR-based digital golf to explain how VR-based digital golf satisfies participation users’ three psychological needs, including the need of autonomy, the need of relatedness, and the need of competence

Persistence and pleasure in VR: Enhancing Exercise Endurance and Enjoyment through Virtual Environments

Virtual Reality (VR) provides an enjoyable addition to stationary physical exercise and can improve performance while exercising. The aim of this study is to explore the effectiveness of three interactive virtual environments (i.e., social, relaxing, stressful) on enjoyment and persistence during strength-based exercises. In a within-subjects experiment, 97 healthy young adults completed four consecutive sets of two strength-based exercises. Participants completed one set as baseline and then each participant completed three more sets in three different interactive environments, experienced through a VR headset. Results showed that both the stressful virtual environment, where participants were hanging suspended over a city, and the social virtual environment where participants were audibly encouraged in a stadium, increased participants’ persistence in both exercises, when compared to the relaxing virtual environment. Specifically, the relaxing sunny beach environment caused poorer performances in a dead hang exercise among men (n = 30), and poorer performances in a core exercise among women (n = 66). Somewhat paradoxically, this relaxing virtual beach environment was considered the most enjoyable environment among both male and female participants. The potential of VR in exercise lies in its ability to provide pleasurable and performance-enhancing immersive environments that may be too expensive or dangerous in reality

Využití virtuální reality pro primární prevenci v cyklistice

Nástroje virtuální reality již nějakou dobu nejsou doménou pouze průmyslového kontextu a postupně se rozšiřují napříč řadou oborů, ať už se jedná o zdravotnictví, bezpečnostní sbory, školství aj. Výjimkou není ani sport. V rámci sportovní edukace v rovině prevence byla navržena, připravena a implementována aplikace cílící na cyklisty a cyklistiky, především pak z kategorie hobby cyklista/cyklistka, a to napříč věkovým spektrem. Smyslem navržené aplikace je primární prevence a aktivní ovlivňování následného chování cyklistů při pohybu na dopravních komunikacích. Studie představuje koncepci příslušné aplikace, výukové cíle, didaktické i technické zpracování a samotný výstup, který byl diseminován cestou samostatné aplikace virtuální reality cílené na edukaci a trénink cyklistů a cyklistek v uvedené problematice.Příspěvek byl vytvořen za podpory projektu SGS-2023-025 s názvem "Ekologicky udržitelná výroba“ řešeného v rámci Interní grantové agentury Západočeské univerzity v Plzni

Design and Evaluation of a Virtual Reality Game to Improve Physical and Cognitive Acuity

Physical and mental health are both integral to healthy living and ageing, and a causal-cum-symbiotic relationship has been observed between the two. Physical and cognitive activities such as exercise and board games are known to promote healthy ageing. In this regard, highly engaging lightboard games are known to improve hand-eye coordination, reflexes, and motor skills for individuals. Immersivity of virtual reality games can transform mundane and repetitive exercise routines into stimulating experiences, and they can be utilized by users to improve physical and cognitive performance from the comfort of their homes. In this study, we adopt design science framework to design, develop and evaluate a VR BATAK lightboard game to improve physical reaction, hand-eye coordination, visual memory and cognitive processing. Based on the findings from evaluation over three phases, we propose three design principles related to accessibility, sensory cueing and cognitive loading, as theoretical and practical contributions of this study

Exploring sensorimotor performance and user experience within a virtual reality golf putting simulator

In light of recent advances in technology, there has been growing interest in virtual reality (VR) simulations for training purposes in a range of high-performance environments, from sport to nuclear decommissioning. For a VR simulation to elicit effective transfer of training to the real-world, it must provide a sufficient level of validity, that is, it must be representative of the real-world skill. In order to develop the most effective simulations, assessments of validity should be carried out prior to implementing simulations in training. The aim of this work was to test elements of the physical fidelity, psychological fidelity and construct validity of a VR golf putting simulation. Self-report measures of task load and presence in the simulation were taken following real and simulated golf putting to assess psychological and physical fidelity. The performance of novice and expert golfers in the simulation was also compared as an initial test of construct validity. Participants reported a high degree of presence in the simulation, and there was little difference between real and virtual putting in terms of task demands. Experts performed significantly better in the simulation than novices (p = .001, d = 1.23), and there was a significant relationship between performance on the real and virtual tasks (r = .46, p = .004). The results indicated that the simulation exhibited an acceptable degree of construct validity and psychological fidelity. However, some differences between the real and virtual tasks emerged, suggesting further validation work is required

Affective and attentional states when running in a virtual reality environment

Engaging in physical exercise in a virtual reality (VR) environment has been reported to improve physical effort and affective states. However, these conclusions might be influenced by experimental design factors, such as comparing VR environments against a non-VR environment without actively controlling for the presence of visual input in non-VR conditions. The present study addressed this issue to examine affective and attentional states in a virtual running task. Participants (n = 40), completed a 21 min run on a treadmill at 70% of Vmax. One group of participants ran in a computer-generated VR environment that included other virtual runners while another group ran while viewing neutral images. Participants in both conditions showed a pattern of reduced positive affect and increased tension during the run with a return to high positive affect after the run. In the VR condition, higher levels of immersive tendencies and attention/absorption in the virtual environment were associated with more positive affect after the run. In addition, participants in the VR condition focused attention more on external task-relevant stimuli and less to internal states than participants in the neutral images condition. However, the neutral images condition produced less negative affect and more enjoyment after the run than the VR condition. The finding suggest that the effects of exercising in a VR environment will depend on individual difference factors (e.g., attention/absorption in the virtual world) but it may not always be better than distracting attention away from exercise-related cues