The Efficacy of a Virtual Reality-Based Mindfulness Intervention
This research addresses the need for effective mindfulness training methods for individuals in wellbeing contexts, but it is incremental as it builds on existing VR and audio-based approaches.
The study tackled the problem of inducing state mindfulness by comparing a virtual reality-based intervention to an audio-based one and a control group, finding that the VR intervention was more robust, with participants reporting a greater state of mindfulness.
Mindfulness can be defined as increased awareness of and sustained attentiveness to the present moment. Recently, there has been a growing interest in the applications of mindfulness for empirical research in wellbeing and the use of virtual reality (VR) environments and 3D interfaces as a conduit for mindfulness training. Accordingly, the current experiment investigated whether a brief VR-based mindfulness intervention could induce a greater level of state mindfulness, when compared to an audio-based intervention and control group. Results indicated two mindfulness interventions, VR-based and audio-based, induced a greater state of mindfulness, compared to the control group. Participants in the VR-based mindfulness intervention group reported a greater state of mindfulness than those in the guided audio group, indicating the immersive mindfulness intervention was more robust. Collectively, these results provide empirical support for the efficaciousness of a brief VR-based mindfulness intervention in inducing a robust state of mindfulness in laboratory settings.