Loading...
The Physiological and Perceptual Responses to Cycling Exercise in a Fully Immersive Virtual Environment
Nowlan, Gerard
Nowlan, Gerard
Advisors
Editors
Other Contributors
Affiliation
EPub Date
Publication Date
2016-09
Submitted Date
Collections
Files
Loading...
Main article
Adobe PDF, 881.49 KB
Other Titles
Abstract
An innovative piece of digital technology which has recently come to the
attention of sports scientists as a potential ergogenic aid is the use of immersive
virtual reality (VR) technology. Whilst the effects of VR on performance have begun
to be explored, the physiological and perceptual responses to exercise when
combined with VR remain relatively unknown. Accordingly, this study investigated
both the physiological and perceptual responses to exercise in a fully immersive
virtual environment viewed through a stereoscopic head-mounted display. Thirteen
recreationally active males (n=12) and females (n=1) (age = 24.9 ± 4.6 y; body mass
= 78.7 ± 6.3 kg; stature = 178.6 ± 3.7 cm; VO2max = 55.1 ± 7.1 ml·kg-1·min-1)
completed a time to exhaustion (TTE) test under control (CON) and virtual reality
(VR) conditions in a repeated measures randomized crossover design. Effect sizes
(ES) and magnitude-based inferences were calculated for all variables between
conditions using a predesigned spreadsheet (Batterham & Cox, 2006). TTE (ES =
0.78; ±0.37), enjoyment (ES = 0.85; ±0.49) and positive affect (PA) (ES = 0.78;
±0.65) were all greater in the VR compared to CON condition. HR and RPE,
analyzed over a 6 minute isotime, were lower at minute two only (ES = 0.33; ±0.38)
and (ES = 0.88; ±0.52) respectively, in the VR compared to CON condition. There
were no changes in VO2 peak, b[La] and negative affect (NA) between conditions.
The use of a fully immersive VR headset in combination with a traditional cycling
task was shown to elicit improvements in TTE performance and increase affective
responses and enjoyment of the exercise, likely due to a dissociative effect. These
findings support the use of fully immersive VR in the exercise domain as an
ergogenic aid.
Citation
Nowlan, G. (2016). The physiological and perceptual responses to cycling exercise in a fully immersive virtual environment (Master's thesis). University of Chester, United Kingdom.
Publisher
University of Chester
Journal
Research Unit
DOI
PubMed ID
PubMed Central ID
Type
Thesis or dissertation
Language
en