Virtual Reality, User Research
Exploring the Impact of Virtual Environments on Perceived Mindfulness and Presence
Overview
Research with respect to VR for meditation has mostly used nature-based environments and elements. This study explores how other virtual environments like an indoor setting, and abstract environment affect a user's perceived mindfulness state, presence, and overall meditation experience.
My Role
Defining research objectives and designing the study methodology.
Developing VR environments in Unity 3D.
Recruiting participants and facilitating the study, collecting and analyzing qualitative and quantitative data.
Process
Build Prototype
Built a Virtual Reality prototype using Unity 3D with 3 Virtual Environments for meditation, based on established design frameworks.
User Testing
Conducted user testing with 12 participants with 3 meditation tasks in each session, gathering qualitative and quantitative data.
Analyze Results
Analyzed quantitative and qualitative results to provide recommendations on designing virtual environments for meditation.
Defining Study Goals
While previous research highlights VR’s potential in meditation, most studies focus on nature-based settings. However, little is known about how different environments like abstract visuals or indoor spaces affect mindfulness experiences.
RQ1: What qualities of different virtual environments support mindfulness in VR?
RQ2: What patterns emerge in participants' experiences across virtual environments?
Designing the Virtual Environments
I designed 3 virtual environments for the user testing. These environments were selected and designed based on previous research studies on how and where people meditate, how different elements like objects and lighting affect people's mood, and design frameworks to design a meditation environment.
Nature-based environments are the most commonly used virtual environments for meditation. Attention Restoration Theory (ART) is a prominent framework these environments are based on that suggests natural elements elicit a sense of calmness in individuals. This environment includes all the common natural elements like grass, trees, a water body, and mountains in distance. The soundscape includes sound of wind, birds, flowing water, and subtle movement of trees and grass due to winds.
While previous research highlights VR’s potential in meditation, most studies focus on nature-based settings. However, little is known about how different environments like abstract visuals or indoor spaces affect mindfulness experiences.
While previous research highlights VR’s potential in meditation, most studies focus on nature-based settings. However, little is known about how different environments like abstract visuals or indoor spaces affect mindfulness experiences.
Testing the Prototype
The User Testing was divided into Meditation Tasks, Post-Task Questionnaires, and Post-Task Feedback.
I recruited 12 university students (ages 20–30, balanced gender, mixed VR and meditation experience). Screening criteria ensured basic VR familiarity and willingness to engage in a 20-minute session. Participants ranged from meditation novices to regular practitioners, allowing us to explore individual differences.
Qualitative Insights
Through thematic coding of the interviews, four themes emerged.
The qualitative feedback in the study was gathered through semi-structured interviews conducted after participants experienced each virtual environment. Questions were asked regarding their overall experience, likes and disliked for each environment, helpful and distracting elements, and comfort/discomfort. I open-coded the qualitative data in the following themes and then, using affinity mapping, grouped it into separate categories and subcategories
Visual Elements:
Participants relied on moving elements—rustling leaves, flickering flames, or pulsating shapes—to maintain focus.
Movement:
The forest elicited calm and grounding, the cozy room fostered comfort, and the abstract void invited intrigue but occasionally felt disorienting.
Space:
The indoor scene’s familiarity was both reassuring and, for some, slightly distracting when they noticed details in the furniture.
Soundscape:
Natural audio reinforced presence in the forest; fireplace crackle anchored attention indoors; abstract ambient tones contributed atmosphere but felt less “real.”
Quantitative Insights
Data was gathered through two established questionnaires presented as likert scale questions- State Mindfulness Scale (SMS) and iGroup Presence Questionnaire (IPQ).
Mindfulness: Initial observations from the quantitative data suggested that the nature-based virtual environment led to the highest and most consistent levels of perceived mindfulness among participants. The abstract and indoor environments appeared to have a similar overall effect on mindfulness, though the abstract environment produced more consistent scores across participants
Presence: The IPQ is a standardized tool used to measure a participant's sense of presence within a virtual environment. In terms of feeling "present" in the virtual environments:
Participants generally reported a stronger sense of general presence in the indoor and nature-based environments compared to the abstract one as shown by IPQ-Gen.
The feeling of the virtual world surrounding them (spatial presence) was reasonably similar across all three environments, though there was more variation in how participants experienced this in the indoor setting as seen in IPQ-Spat.
Participants felt most "involved" or engrossed in the indoor environment, followed by the nature-based, and then the abstract environment which can be seen from IPQ-inv.
The nature-based environment was perceived as the most "realistic," followed by the indoor environment, with the abstract environment being rated as the least realistic as seen from IPQ-Real.
Design Recommendations
We asked the participants questions regarding the vibrator location, the vibration intensity and frequency, and suggestions on the haptic method. I open-coded the qualitative data in the following themes and then, using affinity mapping, grouped it into separate categories and subcategories
Indoor environment:
Participants relied on moving elements—rustling leaves, flickering flames, or pulsating shapes—to maintain focus.
Abstract environment:
The forest elicited calm and grounding, the cozy room fostered comfort, and the abstract void invited intrigue but occasionally felt disorienting.