What is it about?
Exposure to nature, whether real or virtual, can promote relaxation and improve well-being, as can relaxation games. However, according to Attention Restoration Theory, the soft fascination underlying the restorative benefits of nature exposure may conflict with the goal-oriented nature of games, which instead induces hard fascination. This raises the question: how does gamifying a virtual reality nature experience affect its restorative benefits?
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Why is it important?
Some prior work has incorporated gamification elements into virtual reality nature experiences to promote engagement. However, the potential conflict in restoration theory between hard and soft fascination has not yet been empirically examined.
Perspectives
I hope this work helps bridge the gap between theoretical and empirical research in virtual reality nature and encourages further research that integrates these two perspectives.
Yuxuan Huang
North Carolina State University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: How Does Gamification Affect Virtual Reality Nature Experience?, ACM Transactions on Applied Perception, August 2026, ACM (Association for Computing Machinery),
DOI: 10.1145/3842735.
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