Theories in XR, 2022

Maxwell Foxman

The theoretical thrust of major journals mostly derives from the proliferation of XR technology. Scholars enlisted established psychological theories from the 1960s through the 1990s (e.g., Minsky, 1980) regarding the effects of immersive media on users to support their subject-specific arguments, in part because of their prominence in studies of VR research. Papers in Presence, Virtual Reality, and Frontiers of Virtual Reality—the journals we studied—drew from disciplines like healthcare, industrial design, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), and Game Studies. The articles centered on testing VR in relation to the aforementioned sectors. For example, several Frontiers of Virtual Reality essays explored the technology’s ability to foster telepresence to intervene in physical therapy (Elor et al., 2022) or temper body image disorders (Döllinger et al., 2022).^[1] Core psychological attributes that distinguish VR were apparent across studies. Writers seemed to draw conceptually on the broader set of theories that frame VR as a complex communications technology made up of innovations in tracking, rendering, and display of digital representations and avatars (e.g., Blascovich & Bailenson, 2012). Some major theoretical strands, to be discussed further and in the annotated bibliography, leaned heavily on the following concepts: presence, a sense of “being there” (Heeter, 1992); embodiment, or the ability to “change one’s character or perspective” (Lachmair et al., 2022); avatars, or a “graphical representation of a user in a virtual world” (Lin & Latoschik, 2022); and cybersickness, or motion sickness caused by virtual environments experienced in Head Mounted Displays or HMDs (Sato et al., 2022). These were sourced to confirm and advance central assumptions about XR. For instance, Mel Slater’s (2009) groundwork on presence was a “hallmark of the VR experience” (Hartmann & Hofer, 2022) that, when combined with other factors, produced a medley of related phenomena, including spatial, tele- and co-presence. In other words, scholars deployed such ideas and terms to develop measures (e.g., Hayes et al., 2022) and protocols (e.g., Ziabari et al., 2022) for their research interests.^[2]

Most of Virtual Reality’s articles apply cognitive concepts and frameworks from psychology to explain processes of attention, memory, and decision-making. The theories of Reasoned Action (TRA) and Planned Behavior (TPB) were invoked in learning or training using XR. In most cases, the goal was to observe and evaluate interactions between one’s cognitive processes and behaviors in XR environments. There were also variations on TRA and TPB. The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), augmented by the cognition associated with technology use and the notion of flow (Davis & Csikszentmihalyi, 1977), contributed to the magnitude of positive feelings, experiences, and creative capacities found in users in a given scenario. In Frontiers of Virtual Reality, pieces on HCI referenced Quality of Experience (QoE) that determined the “degree of overall satisfaction or annoyance gained” (Fang et al., 2022) from an application. Fewer journal entries broached theories from the managerial/organizational domain. However, about half of Virtual Reality’s articles and even more in Frontiers of Virtual Reality and Presence lacked explicit references to theories. The annotated bibliography contains examples from these journals that use theory in empirical work, as well as more conceptual pieces.

Theories for Presence, Embodiment, Avatars, and Cybersickness

Presence was supported by other models, such as co-presence—a sense of togetherness with another; (Slater et al., 2022); social presence—or feeling like being with another (Glémarec et al., 2022); and spatial presence—being in a virtual environment (Barreda-Ángeles & Hartmann, 2022). Underlying these were psychological theories involving illusion: Place Illusion Theory asserted the need to believe in depicted VR spaces; and Plausibility Illusion Theory underscored the importance that events in VR feel like they are actually happening (Slater et al., 2022). In Frontiers, under the aegis of these theories, researchers tested XR limitations (Latoschik & Wienrich, 2022), designed mindfulness experiences (Kelly et al., 2022), and even delved into issues like how adding sonification might enhance a user’s feeling of presence (Bremner et al., 2022). A handful of articles debated these theories. Authors in Presence argued against a binary understanding of presence—as in believing we are, or are not, somewhere—because that can make it seem like our mind is monolithic. They advocated instead that more attention should be applied to the user who actively contributes to the overall illusion of the experience (Murphy & Skarbez, 2022)—see the full bibliography in the language section of the digest. Another article suggested that congruence provided more consistent spatial cues in virtual environments than presence (Latoschik & Wienrich, 2022). Hartmann and Hofer (2022), as featured in this annotated bibliography, similarly advocated that presence should always be considered with a general “media awareness” that users take into their XR experiences, rather than assuming they are completely transported to another space.

Integral to user activity are theories of embodiment, which likewise proceeded from psychological activities including cognitive load, plausibility illusion (including body ownership in virtual environments), and their connection to presence. Emerging from 20th-century scholarship on the interaction between vision, touch, and the perception of physical actions (Botvinick & Cohen, 1998), body ownership when tested specifically in avatars found that inhabiting them could lead to “physiological, behavioural, attitudinal, and cognitive changes” (Slater et al., 2022) in users. Studies in 2022 used the same theories to elucidate how changes in representation affected everything from perceptions of body weight (Döllinger et al., 2022; van der Waal et al., 2022) to skin color of virtual hands (Pohl & Mottelson, 2022) and went as far as to gauge police officers’ empathy toward Black suspects (Kishore et al., 2021). Also measured were the limits of body ownership along vectors like splitting bodies in two (Kondo & Sugimoto, 2022) or changing size and scale (Pouke et al., 2022). Studies of cognitive load found how, in various users—such as medical patients (Chaby et al., 2022)—communicating through embodied virtual agents influenced thinking and helped avoid abrupt demand for attention when measured through an electroencephalogram as part of research into cognitive load and brain activity. This study suggested that different levels of embodiment (from matching gestures to gaze) can have trade-offs in users’ brains (Chang et al., 2022).

With respect to agents, studies of avatars favored ideas of identification, or the “shift in media users’ self-concept to include aspects of an avatar’s characteristics” (Rheu et al., 2022). Identification was often tied to realism, with some papers turning toward the Uncanny Valley theory (Mori et al., 2012), which posits that avatars’ realism quickly slips from pleasant to uncanny, especially in XR (Wolf et al., 2022). Researchers utilized this notion to ascertain the extent of realism needed in virtual agents, suggesting that only certain parameters like facial expression were necessary for identification (Oker, 2022), or even that realism was not necessarily a key factor in avatars’ persuasiveness. The Proteus Effect, in which attitudes and behaviors of users in actual and virtual worlds match their avatars, affirmed claims that completely realistic graphic fidelity might not be necessary (Kyrlitsias & Michael-Grigoriou, 2022). In other words, the research indicated an enduring interest in the extent to which realism impacted embodied self-identification, which was fueled by positive results. For instance, one article proposed that altering representation (such as skin color) could change perspectives on social issues, specifically that adjusting a user’s hand color was found to reduce implicit racial bias in white participants (Ambron et al., 2022). The authors proposed that embodiment and affiliated shifts in perception happen within a few seconds and could be an important step in using XR for interventions “to favor inclusion and social integration between different racial groups.”

Additionally, some work scrutinized representation through the parallel concept of digital twins, or a virtual copy of a product meant to stimulate an actual product fully and accurately as it is especially utilized in industrial design (e.g., Sharma et al., 2022). However, these were treated more atheoretically and usually referenced as proofs of concept for software and protocols (Weistroffer et al., 2022).

Studies aiming to combat cybersickness leaned on several presumptions about motion sickness. These included:

• Sensory Conflict Theory, which states conflicting visual-vestibular and somatosensory signals cause sickness.
• Postural Instability Theory, which contends that unnatural or unexpected motion impacts user stability.
• Eye-Movement Theory, which claims that the sensory and motor signals used to stabilize a virtual image “innervate the vagal nerve” (Adhanom et al., 2022).
• Sensory Mismatch Theory, which examines mismatched senses associated with body movement (Brown et al., 2022).
• Issues of vection, where Expectancy Violation Theory, as well as Sensory Rearrangement Theory, convey similar neural mismatches when it comes to illusions of self-motion (Teixeira et al., 2022).

Therefore, while some of the aforementioned psychological theories tended to concentrate on how we think of ourselves when taking on a virtual body, studies of cybersickness treated negative reactions to virtual environments as symptoms that needed to be solved. Clearly, XR developers and researchers are still struggling with ways to address ongoing problems of properties like gender and age as measured in surveys and experiments (e.g., Bailey et al., 2022; Brown et al., 2022; Hejtmánek et al., 2022; Suwa et al., 2022), and therefore can present very practical barriers to adoption by large segments of the population.

Finally, some work pushed beyond the standard psychological and physiological theories by drawing on frameworks from scholars’ specific fields: investigating the dark side of flow in VR gambling (Oberdörfer et al., 2022); applying Self-Determination Theory to XR experiences (Piumsomboon et al., 2022); Attention Restoration Theory to explore mindfulness (Sadowski & Khoury, 2022), or even narrative story-living—where users participate and feel as if they live within the drama (Vallance & Towndrow, 2022)—and technological affordances (MacCallum, 2022) to influence the design of content. These theories were often used to answer specific questions about issues like gambling or narrative construction rather than making general claims about immersive media. Only a handful of articles focused on developing core psychological concepts around presence, plausibility, and embodiment, some of which can be found below in the affiliated bibliographic entries. Together, our analyzed corpus suggests that in 2022 there was room to amplify and further evaluate theories key to understanding XR. Few authors questioned long-standing assumptions but instead used them as foundations for empirical work. This position reinforces the psychological benefits of the technology, where presence or embodying avatars in VR may lead to better communication between individuals, while not necessarily questioning the broader culture and context in which these technologies are embedded, which is discussed in the next section.

Critical and Cultural Perspectives

As XR finds wider audiences, the three journals we analyzed eschewed critiques of race, gender, class, and other cultural conditions. Probes into these aspects can be found in journals not solely dedicated to the medium and are being tackled by groups like the Critical Augmented and Virtual Reality Network (CAVRN).^[3] From the political economy perspective, academics situated XR within the broader “platformization of cultural production” (Poell et al., 2021), where platform logic is extended to XR itself. As described in the annotated bibliography below, Egliston and Carter (2022) studied Meta/Oculus’ evolution through their Reality Labs initiative, arguing that a dynamic mode of control happened between the company and third parties ranging from businesses to developers and academics. Meta acquired or brought these actors into their ecosystem through a programmable technical infrastructure and associated policies. Chia’s (2022) work similarly tied the metaverse’s growth to the platform logic of game engines, reminding readers of their broad use beyond gaming and how they lock-in norms from this industry into metaverse production. Harley (2022) critically interpreted the discourses surrounding VR and Oculus, stressing how the technology, despite its many years in the public imagination, is still associated with language of newness; the use of colonialist concepts like pioneering and wild west suggest it provides new terrain to be conquered. The annotated bibliography on language provides a full summary of this article.

Engaging with theories from media psychology, Bengtsson and Van Couvering (2022) used glitches to explore how presence and plausibility can be rethought in relation to theories of gender. Their work is discussed in the annotated bibliography along with Raz (2022) who rigorously approached XR’s potential as an “empathy machine,” although notably in the three journals which made up the bulk of our focus, this particular topic appeared less than it might have in previous years (e.g., Oker, 2022; Pratviel et al., 2022; Zhang et al., 2022).

Numerous theoretical positions, however, remain unconfronted. The cultural experience of both producers and consumers of XR in their adoption, use, and negotiation of the technology is especially understudied, particularly when compared to the taken-for-granted concepts of presence, embodiment, avatars, and cybersickness. Somewhat ironically, even as XR’s sway extends into new terrains, fields, and professions, the very people championing and making use of it are still inadequately represented compared to those propounding theoretical assumptions about VR as a tool for media psychology.

Annotated Bibliography

Kaimara, P., Oikonomou, A., & Deliyannis, I. (2022). Could virtual reality applications pose real risks to children and adolescents? A systematic review of ethical issues and concerns. Virtual Reality, 26(2), 697-735.

The authors systematically review 85 articles to identify and classify three of VR’s primary harmful effects on children and adolescents. The categories include damaging physical, cognitive, and psychological byproducts that frequently result from overuse. Notably, children do not have a decently developed capacity to distinguish between make-believe and reality. Thus, the authors recommend adults help younger participants disconnect from VR experiences. Furthermore, as more modern developmental theories strive to take a life-long approach to learning, the authors encourage future researchers to consider physical, cognitive, and psychological factors of XR use. Of the articles surveyed, only one adopted this integral strategy.

Chia, A. (2022). The metaverse, but not the way you think: game engines and automation beyond game development. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 39(3), 191-200.

Chia applies the frame of platform studies to critique modern conceptions of the metaverse and claims the importance of game engines and similar software in understanding XR. The close connection between the way games are made and the metaverse renders content and people within gaming’s cultural norms. By using the same tools as game developers, the logics of these platform tools (Foxman, 2019) are locked into assumptions about what content is best for the metaverse. The work aligns VR studies with material conditions of production, along with general issues surrounding media archeology, and critical and cultural concerns to include the broader contexts in which XR technology is being adopted by the general public.

Bengtsson, L., R. & Van Couvering, E. (2022). Stretching immersion in virtual reality: How glitches reveal aspects of presence, interactivity and plausibility. Convergence. https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565221129530

While much of XR literature focuses on the fidelity of immersive experiences, Bengtsson and Van Couvering introduce specific glitches into an experiment to better discern gender inequalities. These consisted of scenarios like meetings where the user is acknowledged but then is glitched by not being able to do anything other than observe the other participants as the scene unfolds. The authors find that such glitches, particularly when based on gender, affect different users’ experiences, leading to more critical reflection. The result is a study that adds cultural complexity to core theories surrounding the interactivity and plausibility of XR media, forming a robust framework to account for issues of immersion.

Raz, G. (2022). Rage against the empathy machine revisited: The ethics of empathy-related affordances of virtual reality. Convergence, 28(5), 1457–1475. https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565221086406

While many have argued about the controversial definition of VR as an empathy machine (e.g., Foxman et al., 2021), Raz specifically looks at the ethics of embodiment. To better assess the relationship between empathy and inhabiting an “other,” they draw on psychophysiological evidence and theory to explain how users can be manipulated into novel modes of perceptual and conceptual transformation. This viewpoint not only brings ethical considerations to core VR concepts, but also addresses the other through the technology. Ultimately, the author successfully acknowledges that VR itself may afford complicated and even problematic means of creating a kind of “placeholder” embodiment that is devoid of “biography and independent personality.”

Egliston, B., & Carter, M. (2022). ‘The metaverse and how we’ll build it’: The political economy of Meta’s Reality Labs. New Media & Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448221119785

Egliston and Carter examine the expansion of Meta’s XR industry. Their historiographical study of Meta’s Reality Lab initiative finds that the company deployed a number of economic, policy, and data forms of capture to expand the notion of XR as a programmable platform. Relying heavily on a theoretical stance informed by the political economy of platforms and infrastructures, they address issues of production via software development kits and other material norms for producers. Their approach reveals a dynamic and complicated relationship between Meta’s top-down regulations and the influence of other actors like academics.

Norton, W. J., Sauer, J., & Gerhard, D. (2022). A quantifiable framework for describing immersion. Presence, 29, 191–200.

This article explores a key concept of XR technology, namely immersion. The authors put forth an abstract model, building on Slater’s (2009) theory, that sets quantifiable units for studying levels of immersion. By instituting an immersed sensory spectrum and field metrics, the authors are able to establish a practical scale that is rich with implications for future work. In particular, Norton, Sauer, and Gerhard suggest a measurable gulf between rational and theoretical sensibility. Thus, their research further explains how users of current XR devices may have different immersive experiences because not all hardware immerses equally and can also differ based on personal factors and senses.

Hartmann, T., & Hofer, M. (2022). I Know It Is Not Real (And That Matters) Media Awareness vs. Presence in a Parallel Processing Account of the VR Experience. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 3. https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2022.694048

In this theoretical paper, Hartmann and Hofer tackle the core concept of presence and the plausibility illusion to argue for a new means to apprehend the psychological experience of XR devices. Rather than feeling an acute sense of presence, they contend that VR is more of a dualistic experience. They consequently advocate for media awareness, enabling users to be more conscious basically or dynamically of the artifice of virtual environments. As a parallel to the notion of presence, the work suggests an increasingly comprehensive theory of psychological experiences with the technology where both components shape the overall user experience.

Slater, M., Banakou, D., Beacco, A., Gallego, J., Macia-Varela, F., & Oliva, R. (2022). A Separate Reality: An Update on Place Illusion and Plausibility in Virtual Reality. Frontiers in Virtual Reality (3). https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2022.914392

Slater and colleagues return to core theories regarding XR technology that the scholar pioneered throughout the 2000s. This piece tackles presence and its relationship to the plausibility illusion. Reviewing different methods of measuring presence, this work adds important dimensions to the theories behind the concept. For instance, the authors not only argue that the plausibility illusion is a complex factor that requires both psychophysical and qualitative methods to better understand XR’s efficacy but also advocate that participants are always, to some degree, aware of their place in virtual environments.

Aeschbach, L. F., Opwis, K., & Brühlmann, F. (2022). Breaking immersion: A theoretical framework of alienated play to facilitate critical reflection on interactive media. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 3. https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2022.846490

The authors draw on key theories of play to better analyze immersion. They propose a new theoretical basis of immersion which they define as “alienated play,” where pleasure in interactive media is drawn partly from observing oneself playing. Referencing long-standing video game conceits, such as the procedural rhetoric embedded in game mechanics (Bogost, 2010), they put forward divergent theories of approaching XR, specifically those that allow for more critical reflection of users’ positions in virtual environments which will assist designers in evaluating the role of immersion in their practice.

Barreda-Ángeles, M., & Hartmann, T. (2022). Hooked on the metaverse? Exploring the prevalence of addiction to virtual reality applications. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 3. https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2022.1031697

In this original research, Barreda-Ángeles and Hartmann confront an age-old question in media and communication studies: the addictive quality of VR. They find, through surveying 754 VR users on issues of addiction, somewhat unsurprisingly, that immersive applications are not more addictive than other technologies. However, by connecting research to key theories surrounding flow, presence, and embodiment, they are able to disentangle some leading indicators for addiction for the small subset of those who may be susceptible. Specifically, time spent in VR, and the associated sense of embodiment may be two predictors.

References

Adhanom, I., Halow, S., Folmer, E., & MacNeilage, P. (2022). VR Sickness Adaptation With Ramped Optic Flow Transfers From Abstract To Realistic Environments. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 3. https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2022.848001
Ambron, E., Goldstein, S., Miller, A., Hamilton, R. H., & Coslett, H. B. (2022). From my skin to your skin: Virtual image of a hand of different skin color influences movement duration of the real hand in Black and White individuals and influences racial bias. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 3. https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2022.884189
Bailey, G. S., Arruda, D. G., & Stoffregen, T. A. (2022). Using quantitative data on postural activity to develop methods to predict and prevent cybersickness. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 3. https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2022.1001080
Barreda-Ángeles, M., & Hartmann, T. (2022). Hooked on the metaverse? Exploring the prevalence of addiction to virtual reality applications. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 3. https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2022.1031697
Blascovich, J., & Bailenson, J. (2012). Infinite Reality: The Hidden Blueprint of Our Virtual Lives (Reprint edition). William Morrow Paperbacks.
Bogost, I. (2010). Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames. MIT Press.
Botvinick, M., & Cohen, J. (1998). Rubber hands “feel” touch that eyes see. Nature, 391(6669), 756.
Bremner, P., Mitchell, T. J., & McIntosh, V. (2022). The impact of data sonification in virtual reality robot teleoperation. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 3, 904720.
Brown, P., Spronck, P., & Powell, W. (2022). The simulator sickness questionnaire, and the erroneous zero baseline assumption. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 3. https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2022.945800
Chaby, L., Benamara, A., Pino, M., Prigent, E., Ravenet, B., Martin, J.-C., Vanderstichel, H., Becerril-Ortega, R., Rigaud, A.-S., & Chetouani, M. (2022). Embodied virtual patients as a simulation-based framework for training clinician-patient communication skills: An overview of their use in psychiatric and geriatric care. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 3. https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2022.827312
Chang, Z., Bai, H., Zhang, L., Gupta, K., He, W., & Billinghurst, M. (2022). The impact of virtual agents’ multimodal communication on brain activity and cognitive load in Virtual Reality. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 3. https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2022.995090
Chia, A. (2022). The metaverse, but not the way you think: game engines and automation beyond game development. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 39(3), 191–200.
Davis, M. S., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1977). Beyond Boredom and Anxiety: The Experience of Play in Work and Games. In Contemporary Sociology (Vol. 6, Issue 2, p. 197). https://doi.org/10.2307/2065805
Döllinger, N., Wolf, E., Mal, D., Wenninger, S., Botsch, M., Latoschik, M. E., & Wienrich, C. (2022). Resize Me! Exploring the User Experience of Embodied Realistic Modulatable Avatars for Body Image Intervention in Virtual Reality. In arXiv [cs.HC]. arXiv. http://arxiv.org/abs/2203.05060
Egliston, B., & Carter, M. (2022). “The metaverse and how we’ll build it’: The political economy of Meta’s Reality Labs. New Media & Society, 146144482211197.
Elor, A., Conde, S., Powell, M., Robbins, A., Chen, N. N., & Kurniawan, S. (2022). Physical therapist impressions of telehealth and virtual reality needs amidst a pandemic. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 3. https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2022.915332
Fang, Y., Qiao, Y., Zeng, F., Zhang, K., & Zhao, T. (2022). A human-in-the-loop haptic interaction with subjective evaluation. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 3. https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2022.949324
Foxman, M. (2019). United We Stand: Platforms, Tools and Innovation With the Unity Game Engine. Social Media + Society, 5(4), 2056305119880177.
Foxman, M., Markowitz, D. M., & Davis, D. Z. (2021). Defining empathy: Interconnected discourses of virtual reality’s prosocial impact. New Media & Society, 23(8), 2167–2188.
Glémarec, Y., Lugrin, J.-L., Bosser, A.-G., Buche, C., & Latoschik, M. E. (2022). Controlling the stage: A High-Level control system for virtual audiences in Virtual Reality. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 3. https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2022.876433
Harley, D. (2022). “This would be sweet in VR”: On the discursive newness of virtual reality. New Media & Society, 14614448221084655.
Hartmann, T., & Hofer, M. (2022). I Know It Is Not Real (And That Matters) Media Awareness vs. Presence in a Parallel Processing Account of the VR Experience. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 3. https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2022.694048
Hayes, A. T., Hughes, C. E., & Bailenson, J. (2022). Identifying and Coding Behavioral Indicators of Social Presence With a Social Presence Behavioral Coding System. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 3. https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2022.773448
Heeter, C. (1992). Being There: The Subjective Experience of Presence. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 1(2), 262–271.
Heim, M. (1993). The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality. Oxford University Press.
Hejtmánek, L., Hůla, M., Herrová, A., & Surový, P. (2022). Forest digital twin as a relaxation environment: A pilot study. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 3. https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2022.1033708
Kelly, R. M., Seabrook, E. M., Foley, F., Thomas, N., Nedeljkovic, M., & Wadley, G. (2022). Design Considerations for Supporting Mindfulness in Virtual Reality. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 2. https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2021.672556
Kishore, S., Spanlang, B., Iruretagoyena, G., Szostak, D., & Slater, M. (2021). A virtual reality embodiment technique to enhance helping behavior of police towards a victim of police racial aggression. Presence , 1–23.
Kondo, R., & Sugimoto, M. (2022). Split body: Extending self-location by splitting a body left and right. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 3. https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2022.992803
Kyrlitsias, C., & Michael-Grigoriou, D. (2022). Social Interaction With Agents and Avatars in Immersive Virtual Environments: A Survey. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 2. https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2021.786665
Lachmair, M., Fischer, M. H., & Gerjets, P. (2022). Action-control mappings of interfaces in virtual reality: A study of embodied interaction. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 3. https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2022.976849
Latoschik, M. E., & Wienrich, C. (2022). Congruence and plausibility, not presence: Pivotal conditions for XR experiences and effects, a novel approach. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 3, 694433.
Lin, J., & Latoschik, M. E. (2022). Digital body, identity and privacy in social virtual reality: A systematic review. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 3. https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2022.974652
MacCallum, K. (2022). The integration of extended reality for student-developed games to support cross-curricular learning. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 3. https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2022.888689
Minsky, M. (1980). Telepresence. https://philpapers.org/rec/MINT
Mori, M., MacDorman, K. F., & Kageki, N. (2012). The Uncanny Valley [From the Field]. IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine / IEEE Robotics & Automation Society, 19(2), 98–100.
Murphy, D., & Skarbez, R. (2022). What do we mean when we say “presence”? Presence , 171–190.
Oberdörfer, S., Schraudt, D., & Latoschik, M. E. (2022). Embodied Gambling—Investigating the Influence of Level of Embodiment, Avatar Appearance, and Virtual Environment Design on an Online VR Slot Machine. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 3. https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2022.828553
Oker, A. (2022). Embodied social cognition investigated with virtual agents: The infinite loop between social brain and virtual reality. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 3. https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2022.962129
Piumsomboon, T., Ong, G., Urban, C., Ens, B., Topliss, J., Bai, X., & Hoermann, S. (2022). Ex-Cit XR: Expert-elicitation and validation of Extended Reality visualisation and interaction techniques for disengaging and transitioning users from immersive virtual environments. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 3. https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2022.943696
Poell, T., Nieborg, D. B., & Duffy, B. E. (2021). Platforms and Cultural Production. John Wiley & Sons.
Pohl, H., & Mottelson, A. (2022). Hafnia Hands: A Multi-Skin Hand Texture Resource for Virtual Reality Research. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 3. https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2022.719506
Pouke, M., Evan G. Center, Chambers, A. P., Pouke, S., Ojala, T., & Lavalle, S. M. (2022). The body scaling effect and its impact on physics plausibility. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 3. https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2022.869603
Pratviel, Y., Bouni, A., Deschodt-Arsac, V., Larrue, F., & Arsac, L. M. (2022). Avatar embodiment in VR: Are there individual susceptibilities to visuo-tactile or cardio-visual stimulations? Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 3. https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2022.954808
Raz, G. (2022). Rage against the empathy machine revisited: The ethics of empathy-related affordances of virtual reality. In Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies (Vol. 28, Issue 5, pp. 1457–1475). https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565221086406
Rheu, M. M. J., Ratan, R., Sah, Y. J., Cherchiglia, L., & Day, T. (2022). Jogging in your avatar’s footsteps: The effects of avatar customization and control intuitiveness. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 3. https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2022.873689
Ryan Bengtsson, L., & Van Couvering, E. (2022). Stretching immersion in virtual reality: How glitches reveal aspects of presence, interactivity and plausibility. Convergence, 13548565221129530.
Sadowski, I., & Khoury, B. (2022). Nature-based mindfulness-compassion programs using virtual reality for older adults: A narrative literature review. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 3. https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2022.892905
Sato, H., Sato, Y., Takamatsu, A., Makita, M., & Wada, T. (2022). Earth-Fixed Books Reduce Motion Sickness When Reading With a Head-Mounted Display. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 3. https://uhci.org/article/15801/
Sharma, A., Kosasih, E., Zhang, J., Brintrup, A., & Calinescu, A. (2022). Digital Twins: State of the art theory and practice, challenges, and open research questions. Journal of Industrial Information Integration, 30, 100383.
Slater, M. (2009). Place illusion and plausibility can lead to realistic behaviour in immersive virtual environments. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences, 364(1535), 3549–3557.
Slater, M., Banakou, D., Beacco, A., Gallego, J., Macia-Varela, F., & Oliva, R. (2022). A Separate Reality: An Update on Place Illusion and Plausibility in Virtual Reality. In Frontiers in Virtual Reality (Vol. 3). https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2022.914392
Suwa, T., Sato, Y., & Wada, T. (2022). Reducing Motion Sickness When Reading With Head-Mounted Displays By Using See-Through Background Images. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 3. https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2022.910434
Teixeira, J., Miellet, S., & Palmisano, S. (2022). Unexpected Vection Exacerbates Cybersickness During HMD-Based Virtual Reality. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 3. https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2022.860919
Vallance, M., & Towndrow, P. A. (2022). Perspective: Narrative Storyliving in Virtual Reality Design. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 3. https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2022.779148
van der Waal, N. E., van Bokhorst, J. A. W., & van der Laan, L. N. (2022). Identifying emotions toward an overweight avatar in Virtual Reality: The moderating effects of visuotactile stimulation and drive for thinness. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 3. https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2022.989676
Weistroffer, V., Keith, F., Bisiaux, A., Andriot, C., & Lasnier, A. (2022). Using Physics-Based Digital Twins and Extended Reality for the Safety and Ergonomics Evaluation of Cobotic Workstations. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 3. https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2022.781830
Wolf, E., Döllinger, N., Mal, D., Wenninger, S., Bartl, A., Botsch, M., Latoschik, M. E., & Wienrich, C. (2022). Does distance matter? Embodiment and perception of personalized avatars in relation to the self-observation distance in virtual reality. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 3. https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2022.1031093
Zhang, J., Dong, Z., Bai, X., Lindeman, R. W., He, W., & Piumsomboon, T. (2022). Augmented Perception Through Spatial Scale Manipulation in Virtual Reality for Enhanced Empathy in Design-Related Tasks. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 3. https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2022.672537
Ziabari, S. P. K., Ofoghi, Z., Rodrigues, E. A., Gromala, D., & Moreno, S. (2022). Investigating the Role of Having an Avatar in Virtual Reality on Pain Alleviation and Embodiment in Patients With Pain Using Electroencephalogram: A Neuroimaging Protocol. In Frontiers in Virtual Reality (Vol. 2). https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2021.775764

Acknowledgements: I would like to thank Dalton Bouzek for his hard work in analyzing a portion of articles for this section of the digest.

1. To elucidate how theories were used in articles from these journals, one of us actively read each article and then compared notes/summaries to draw conclusions about the prominence of certain theories, and more importantly how they were employed. ↑

2. These are not the only major areas of theoretical interest in VR/XR research which have long included other topics like artificiality, interaction, simulation, and networked communication, among other subjects. For more on these traditional areas, see Heim, 1993. ↑

3. https://cavrn.org/ ↑