BSc (Hons) psychology student Kieran shares details on his final year research project into virtual reality and meditation.
Virtual reality in meditation
Kieran's final year research project
? Aim of the research
We want to break down the stereotype of internal meditation being the best meditation by improving on external meditation, which will be better for people with anxiety.
Inspiration for this research topic
In first and second year you get to participate in a range of research studies that the final year psychology students are conducting. I loved getting involved in any virtual reality experiments and it really made me want to use virtual reality in my final year research project.
My placement was in a neuro-rehabilitation ward and working with patient's who had brain injuries. I ran weekly meditation groups with these patients that they really enjoyed. This inspired me to look at different ways of improving meditation, one of the ways I thought I could do this was by using virtual reality through ore inspiring emotions.
My research
My research project is in virtual reality and meditation. aiming to improve upon external meditation which focuses on having your eyes open on point in the near distance.
1. On the VR set they are shown Central Park ²ÝùÊÓƵ
2. On the VR set they are shown Haifoss, Iceland
3. We ask the participants to shut their eyes and take part in internal meditation.
What we hope for is that the Iceland ore inspiring condition is the best one to improve meditation.
When we focus on meditation there is a continuum of exteroceptive and interoceptive signals.
Exteroceptive - a type of medication that involves focusing on the external world and your senses.
Interoceptive - a meditation practice that helps you become more aware of your body's signals and emotions.
The stereotypical view of meditation is the eyes shut breathing in and out, and actually what we find is that the focus on interoceptive signals is not so good for participants that have anxiety, so when you are focusing on things like heart rate which is more extenuated when you are focusing internally, that will likely intensify that feeling of anxiety. We want to break down the stereotype of internal meditation being the best meditation by improving on external meditation, which will be better for people with anxiety.
Support while conducting our research
The facilities and equipment are fantastic, the virtual reality labs enable us to do the whole research. Allowing us to conduct our research with the participants in a private well equipped space. The academic support is great and there is always someone available in the tech office for helping with any issues.
You spend a lot of time reading a lot of literature and when you identify a gap in this, and all of the readings point towards you finding something that you are able to add upon previous findings, this is quite exciting as a researcher.