Increased cognitive load in immersive virtual reality during visuomotor adaptation is associated with decreased long-term retention and context transfer.
Julia M Juliano, Nicolas Schweighofer, Sook-Lei Liew
PMID 36199101WHAT IT FOUND
Healthy adults learned a reaching task slower in VR than on a screen, and forgetting was greater after 24 hours.
Higher mental effort during VR training linked to more forgetting, suggesting VR may need extra practice time to build lasting skills.
Key findings
01Mental effort, measured by reaction time to a secondary task, was significantly higher in the VR environment than in the conventional screen environment during the entire training period.
02Participants trained in VR showed greater forgetting of the motor skill after 24 hours compared to those trained on a screen, regardless of whether they were tested back in VR or on a screen.
03Higher cognitive load during training was directly associated with increased forgetting of the motor task after 24 hours.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study involved only healthy young adults, so results may not apply to clinical populations with cognitive or motor impairments. Context transfer was tested by moving from VR to a computer screen, not to real-world physical tasks, so it is unclear how well these findings translate to functional rehabilitation. The sample size was small, and the difference in long-term retention between VR and screen groups was borderline significant. The use of a dual-task probe to measure cognitive load may have altered the natural motor learning process.
Declared interests
The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health. No other conflicts of interest were reported.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that VR is ineffective for motor learning. The study shows that VR requires more cognitive resources, which can slow down the initial formation of long-term motor memories, but it does not prove that VR cannot eventually produce equivalent outcomes if practice time is adjusted.