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Department of Psychology

Virtual Reality and Psychophysiology Laboratories

The members of the three research groups have access to Physiological measurement facilities and Virtual Reality VR laboratory along with specialist support. Projects cover a wide range of topics including, for example, the use of VR in education, road safety and simulation, and the physiological measurement of reactions to vehicle behaviour and the detection of deception.

Current physiological equipment includes a suite of Biopac Physiological measurement devices for the recording and analysis of electrodermal activity (EDA), heart rate and heart rate variability (via ECG), pulse rate, respiration rate, and skin temperature. These devices are supplemented by custom interfaces to allow the synchronisation of events and stimuli between systems.

VR systems include HTC VIVE HMD, and Meta Quest headsets ranging from Oculus Go devices to Meta Quest 2 and 3 systems. These HMDs can be tethered to a high-performance workstation for high-end graphic applications or used standalone for applications that require natural movement through an environment. Studies are typically developed and conducted using custom designed and programmed Unity3D applications.

Representative publications:

Allcoat, D. &von Mühlenen, A. (2018).Learning in virtual reality: Effects on performance, emotion and engagementLink opens in a new window.Research in Learning Technology, 26.

Allcoat. D., Hatchard, T., Azmat, F., Standfield, K., Watson, D.G., &von Mühlenen, A. (2018).Education in the digital age: Learning experience in virtual and mixed realitiesLink opens in a new window.Journal of Educational Computing Research, 59, 795-816.

Ritchie, O.T., Watson, D.G., Griffiths, N., Misyak, J., Chater, N., Xu, Z., & Mouzakitis, A. (2019).How should autonomous vehicles overtake other drivers?Link opens in a new windowTransportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour,66, 406-418.

Norman, D.G., Gunnell, D.A., Mrowiec, A.J., & Watson, D.G. (2020).Seen this scene? Scene recognition in the reaction-time Concealed Information TestLink opens in a new window,Memory & Cognition,48, 1388-1402.

Norman, D.G., Wade, K.A., Williams, M.A., & Watson, D.G. (2020).Caught virtually lying—Crime scenes in virtual reality help to expose suspects’ concealed recognitionLink opens in a new window.Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 9,118-127.