Impact of virtual reality on attention and memory in school going children

Yukta J. Budhwani, Waqar M. Naqvi *, Chaitanya A. Kulkarni, Sakshi P. Arora

Ravi Nair Physiotherapy College, Datta Meghe Institute of Medical Sciences, Wardha, Maharashtra, India

ABSTRACT

Virtual reality has tremendously accelerated the rate of recovery along with active patient participation in the field of health sciences. Researches show that this revolutionary technology has shown miraculous results particularly in the fields of neurosciences, musculoskeletal science and psychology. Various studies focusing on conditions like Depression, Parkinson’s disease, ADHD, PTSD, Stroke, etc. have shown some promising results. Virtual reality immersion therapy (VRIT) or Virtual reality exposure therapy (VRET) is designed to isolate the user from their surrounding sensory inputs and an illusion of immersion inside a computer-generated interactive environment is provided which makes the therapy not only interesting and entertaining but also motivating and effective. In this study, 50 participants will be enrolled. All the participants will be recruited as per the inclusion criteria and will be given a 30minute Oculus quest therapy for 4 consequent weeks per day. Appropriate scales for the assessment of memory and attention will be used to evaluate the results of the study. This study aims to investigate the impact of virtual reality on attention and memory of school going children. Numerous studies focusing on conditions related to neurology and psychology have shown some promising results. This progress makes it essential to research the impact of virtual reality and thus provide guidelines for the field of education and technology. It is assumed that virtual reality uses latent acquisition when used for learning, increasing memory and retention, by producing spatial presence and a stronger immersion experience.

Keywords:

Virtual reality, Oculus quest, Neurosciences, Musculoskeletal science, Psychology, Retention, Children.