Could You Repeat That, Please? Increasing The Quality And Replicability Of Physiological Virtual Reality Research Through A Comprehensive Experimental Framework

Virtual reality (VR) experiments are increasingly employed because of their internal and external validity compared to real-world observation and laboratory experiments. Recently, the attention of human behavioural research in VR has focused on the use of psychophysiological signals, such as electroencephalography (EEG) or electrocardiography (ECG). However, the replicability of these research findings is hardly existent due to inconsistent methodological approaches and misaligned theoretical formulations of the measured phenomena. In the proposed project, we explore research gaps concerning the user experience factors measured in VR, the physiological sensors used for measuring such factors, and the data collection and analysis practices. The project will address these research gaps via 1) literature research to form a comprehensive conceptualisation and concordant operationalisation of Quality of User Experience in VR, 2) interviews with experts to investigate the best practices for obtaining and analysing physiological sensors data in VR, and 3) end-user tests to assess the applicability of the QoE model, the established psychological measures and the best practices outlined during the interviews. This proposal's findings will provide a standardized experiment workflow for physiological VR research.