Virtual reality applications
VR is changing how experts approach problems and come up with creative solutions in a variety of fields, including architecture and urban planning, where it helps visualize intricate structures and simulate entire cities, and healthcare and surgery, where it enhances accuracy and patient safety.
[5][6] VR applications promote technical proficiency, offer practical experience, and improve patient outcomes by decreasing errors and boosting productivity in medical education.
[7][8][9] Beyond healthcare, virtual reality (VR) plays a key role in improving education and training through realistic, interactive settings, designing safer workplaces, and producing calming nature experiences.
VR enables architects to better understand the details of a project, such as the transition of materials, sightlines, or visual displays of wall stress, wind loads, solar heat gain, or other engineering factors.
[13] Software developers are building VR solutions to skip redundant design workflow phases and meet end-user expectations faster and more accurately.
Studies on exposure to nature environments show how they are able to help individuals relax, recover attention capacity and cognitive function, reduce stress and stimulate positive moods.
[8][31][32][33][34] A 2020 study found that clinical students trained through VR scored higher across various areas, including diagnosis, surgical methods, and overall performance, compared to those taught traditionally.
[35] In one of these studies for example, from 2022, Participants were given a touch-screen monitor, two surgical handlers, and two-foot pedals that were designed to emulate a real world laparoscopic simulator.
These findings demonstrate how VR-based simulators, which provide a secure and entertaining environment for practicing surgical techniques, have the potential to completely transform laparoscopic training.
By creating highly realistic and interactive virtual environments, VR simulations have potential to enhance surgical skills, improve patient safety, and reduce training costs.
[5] The first collaborative virtual reality surgery was successfully performed in June 2022, in Brazil by pediatric surgeon Noor Ul Owase Jeelani, of Great Ormond Street Hospital in London.
[41] Researchers are trying to overcome these challenges by providing BA therapy via virtual reality, enabling patients, especially elderly adults, to engage in activities that they would not be able to attend without VR.
In the therapy, users wear a headset, and a virtual character provides psychological advice and guides them as they explore simulated environments (such as a café or a busy street).
[65] Non-profit organizations have used VR to bring potential supporters closer to distant social, political and environmental issues in immersive ways not possible with traditional media.
The specific device used to provide the VR experience, whether it be through a mobile phone or desktop computer, does not appear to impact the educational benefits received by the learner.
[84] Based on data from research conducted by the University Hospitals Schleswig-Holstein and collaborators from other institutions, medical students and surgeons with years of experience, show marked performance boosts after practicing with VR technology.
Another recent study at North Carolina University of Chapel Hill has shown that developing VR systems has allowed for laparoscopic imaging integration, real-time skin layer visualization, and enhanced surgical precision capabilities.
According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), SmartMFG involves fully integrated collaborative manufacturing systems that respond in real-time to changing demands and conditions.
[105] At its core, SmartMFG incorporates Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) and the Internet of Things (IoT) to seamlessly connect data across different stages of the manufacturing process.
AR devices offer safety improvements and reduce physical demands on workers in production plants, guiding users in a virtual environment.
This technology facilitates the design and customization of products within the SmartMFG framework, increasing interaction complexity and supporting manual data input (MDI) systems.
[137] The sites may be restricted or provide no access for the public,[138] such as caves, damaged or destroyed structures, or sensitive environments that are closed to allow them to recover from overuse.
VR can be used for OSH purposes to: Virtual reality offers social scientists and psychologists a cost-effective tool to study and replicate interactions in a controlled environment.
[148][clarification needed] Researchers have utilized embodied VR perspective-taking to evaluate whether changing a person's self-representation may help in reducing bias against particular social groups.
[150] However, other research has shown individuals taking the form of a black avatar had higher levels of implicit racial bias favoring whites after leaving the virtual environment.
Especially in the field of its investigation, virtual reality became an invaluable tool, since it allows to test the performance of subjects in an environment which is highly immersive and controllable at the same time.
[151] Starting in the early 2020s, virtual reality has also been discussed as a technological tool that may support people's grieving process, based on digital recreations of deceased individuals.
In 2021, this practice received particular media attention following a South Korean TV documentary, which invited a grieving mother to interact with a virtual replica of her deceased daughter.
The Russian news agency, TASS, reported a death from VR use in 2017, when a 44-year old man "tripped and crashed into a glass table, suffered wounds and died on the spot from a loss of blood".
According to Pearce, without genetically reprogramming the negative feedback mechanisms of the brain, one returns to one's baseline level of happiness or ill-being, which is determined by one's genes and life history.
