Research Using Virtual Reality: What are the Benefits, Challenges, and Potentials?

Virtual reality (VR) enables the simulation of worlds in a computer-generated environment. Over the past years, the technology of VR has been refined as VR headset screens improved both in their resolution and their fields of view. Furthermore, improvements in computer hardware and 3D software also facilitate a higher degree of realism in VR. Meanwhile, VR has become a widely used tool in scientific research. VR offers new ways of standardization as stimuli are presented without any visual influences from the laboratory. Additionally, VR environments are fully customizable to the needs of the research question. However, these customizations require additional skills, such as the creation of three-dimensional models or programming events in VR. Nevertheless, VR gives rise to new ways of measuring humans behavior. For example, the position of the VR headset inside the virtual world can be used to measure humans’ movement in VR and modern VR headsets also allow eye-tracking measurements. This allows VR to measure subtle behaviors that are difficult to measure in real life. These and other potentials and challenges in VR research are discussed within the context of possible research questions in psychology.