# VR-Enhanced Cognitive Learning: Method, Framework, and Application
## 1 Introduction  
Constructivism is a branch of cognitive psychology that studies the way individuals perceive and understands the world. Constructivists believe that learning is no longer part of a simple transfer of knowledge from teachers to students but a process of knowledge self-construction process based on the existing knowledge base and the specific environment. In the view of constructivists, learners are the leaders of learning, not teachers. The connotation of learning is that learners actively explore knowledge and construct meaning with the help of facilitators (teachers or learning partners) in specific situations (cognitive environment, social context, cultural context, and so on). Obviously, in the process of cognitive learning, the creation of a situation is the premise, the reconstruction of meaning is the goal, and conversation and negotiation are the means to achieve the goal. Therefore, context is the key factor in implementing efficient cognitive learning. However, in the traditional teaching mode, most of the knowledge is explained by teachers orally, and the concepts and principles are presented through text, pictures, or videos, which requires students to give full play of their imagination to understand. Naturally, the teaching effect is not very ideal, especially for teaching engineering practice-related courses. For these courses, if students can be in the field site and directly participate in the practice process, the learning effect will greatly improve. However, for the sake of safety or cost, not all of the engineering courses are suitable or possible for students to experience directly. Thus, the role of virtual reality technology appears. It can create near-reality but repeatable scenes, thereby reducing costs and improving the participation ratio of students. Virtual reality technology is good at creating cognitive scenes which are needed for education and teaching, including virtual teaching environments, virtual laboratories, etc., to make up for the deficiency of real conditions. Since 2019, COVID-19 has broken out all over the world. The spread of the virus is extremely strong, causing many infections and deaths worldwide. The group gathering behaviors, such as centralized classroom teaching, field experience activities, and especially cross-regional activities, have been strongly restricted, which becomes a serious obstacle to the construction of the learning environment [1]. The advantages of VR technology in creating virtual reality scenes and classrooms are gradually showing. Theoretically, virtual reality can virtually display any person, anything, or any object according to learning requirements and design dynamic hierarchical scenes according to task requirements. With the aid of VR technology, educators and learners can feel the unique situation of teaching practice without leaving home and complete the learning process through the interaction between learners and the environment. Immersion and interactive features created by VR teaching mode are one of the effective ways to realize constructive learning. Recently, using VR technology to promote constructive learning has attracted the attention of some researchers. For example, [PERSON] et al. [2] developed a VR-based teaching application for the computer architecture course. [PERSON] et al. [3] designed a VR game for simultaneous multiple people engineering training. [PERSON] et al. [4] developed a VR learning system for anatomy education. However, the research on VR-enhanced cognitive learning is still in the primary stage; still, many problems need to be addressed: (1) the relationship between VR and cognitive learning has not been dissected, (2) a lack of a general VR reinforcement learning model, (3) the existing VR cognitive learning application platforms being strong scene limitations, and (4) the limit of the learning effect, etc. This paper studies the theory of VR-enhanced cognitive learning and demonstrates the relationship between them.