Virtual Reality Tasks
Virtual Reality (VR) and Extended Reality (XR, which includes altered and mixed reality), think of it as VR but without the fully 3D environment, offer an exciting future for cognitive, counseling, and clinical psychology. As such, I wanted to develop a hub for these tasks with some citations on their use.
VR offers us an exciting look into a person’s attention, reaction time, and spatial memory.
The codes here are available only as Python files due to the size and difficulty in compiling them into an executable file.
Furthermore, most VR applications are coded in C# using Unity, while these are made in Python. I feel it is necessary to state that these are purely exploratory and will likely not be of a high standard or comparable to the standard tasks. But this is to be expected with learning a new skill. Any and all feedback is appreciated.
VR Executables
3DMaze: This is your standard maze to measure long-term spatial memory. To measure this, you need to repeat the maze multiple times and record the speed it takes to complete. Compare the time between trials to see if they are improving; if so, their long-term spatial memory is efficient. If not, this signals an issue.
3D Driving Stop Task: A task that requires a person to ‘brake’ or react to an exclamation point that mimics a person driving in a city. The participants have one second to respond to the break. To increase the validity of this task, you can have a person use the brake pedal as input by configuring it so that a brake pedal press is interpreted as a space.
3D Morris Maze: This mimics the water maze that is used in animal experiments. Where rats are placed in a pool of water and swim around until they find the shallow part of the maze pool. Recreating this in real life is difficult for several reasons, including that it is wholly unethical to force a person to swim around at risk of drowning. This task was developed as an alternative that prioritized ease of use and ethics.
Mindfulness Activity: This is an activity that has the participant walk around in a simulated beach environment, as instructions for box breathing are presented on screen. To make it even more realistic, you can have the participant place their feet in sand to make it feel like they are on a beach.
Systematic Desensitization Coming Soon…
This will be merely a proof of concept demonstrating that systematic desensitization can be implemented in VR. However, this should only be done by competent professionals. If you are a student or in training, do not use this for therapy; that is beyond unethical, unprofessional, and distasteful. Using this to learn and understand the process of systematic desensitization is best.