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ABSTRACT
This study explored the effects of virtual reality on young children’s understanding of possibility and impossibility. It involved four-year-old children (30 boys and 30 girls) who were randomly allocated to a virtual reality group, a video group, or a picture book group. Each child was individually presented with three impossible and three matched possible events using their assigned medium. After each event, children were asked whether it was possible in real life and why/why not. Children in the VR group were more likely to correctly judge the possibility of possible events than children in the video group and they were more likely to incorrectly judge the possibility of impossible events than children in the video group. Furthermore, they were more likely to correctly judge the possibility of possible events than impossible events. The results suggest that virtual reality affects four-year-old children’s understanding of possibility and impossibility. Practical implications of these findings are discussed.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank the school, parents, and children who participated/co-operated in this project and to three anonymous reviews for their helpful and constructive comments.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Anastasia Schmitz
Anastasia Schmitz is a Masters student of Human-Computer Interaction at the University College London. She has worked for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in the Department of Research and Development, where she has contributed to research on TV production galleries, transmedia storytelling, Augmented Reality (AR) as well as subtitles in 360° video and Virtual Reality (VR). Her general interest lies in the development of new media and the usability, accessibility as well as safety of new information communication technologies for children.
Richard Joiner
Richard Joiner, PhD, is a professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Bath and a member of the Cognition, Affective Science & Technology Laboratories (CASTL) research group. His main area of research is the use of digital technologies to support learning. For example, he has conducted research on the potential of tablets for supporting children’s learning of physics and the role of digital games, such as “Racing Academy”, for promoting students’ learning.
Paul Golds
Paul Golds is a research engineer at BBC Research & Development. His current projects focus on methods of using real-time graphics technologies including virtual reality, light fields, and novel uses of 360° video. His previous work has included augmenting broadcast video with timed interactive graphic overlays to tailor content individually for users, and large-scale metadata search systems.