VR and Psychology Spatial perception was one of the earliest realms of behaviour to be investigated by psychologists, and one of the earliest PhD theses in psychology in the US was obtained by G Stanley Hall in 1878, working in this area. In the past, experimental psychologists have made good use of computer technology, to improve the quality and flexibility of stimulus displays.
Participants behave, at least in some respects, as though present in the virtual world.
It is hardly surprising that this medium has attracted so much interest from psychologists, since it enables the examination of phenomena that would be difficult or impossible to test in the real world. Moreover, since interactivity can be tailored to the abilities of the individual user, VR may prove particularly useful for individuals whose interaction with the real world is limited in some way. Exploration, error correction, or other experiences which promote the acquisition of spatial knowledge in able bodied children had been absent from most of their daily lives. Such children could experience free choice and self-initiated displacements in VR, perhaps for the first time. However, we were sceptical that virtual experience might be inadequate to convey the kind of information that an individual uses to construct the map-like cognitive representations which are arguably necessary for successful navigation in large scale spaces.