Do you wish to be a better runner and ready to get going? Becoming a better runner is more than just choosing the right pair of running shoes and increasing your physical ability to perform a successful run. You also need to be mentally prepared to increase your running productivity. Here is where Virtual Reality (VR) and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can help.
Up until now, there have been limited options available for mental training using technologies like sensors and actuators. These technologies have primarily been used to improve physical training. A newly published study explores the possibilities that VR and CBT have to create a technology-based mental training for athletes.
Our team carried out a formative study to explore the user experience by incorporating CBT techniques into VR technology, concentrating on two critical mental aspects of running: race strategy and motivation. They created a VR application influenced by CBT to approach these aspects and then evaluated the user experience of this VR application with 25 runners.
Our evaluation shows that the runners had a positive and valuable experience with the VR application and its CBT components. A major predictor of the user experience evaluation was shown to be the perceived significance of the race strategy of the runners.
Through this study, our team has shown that VR solutions inspired by CBT can be a viable method for developing effective mental training tools in sports. We are excited to see where our research and the future VR and CBT developments will lead us.
See the paper for more details: Cardenas Hernandez, F. P., Schneider, J., Di Mitri, D. and Drachsler, H. (2025). On-Your Marks, Ready? Exploring the User Experience of a VR Application for Runners with Cognitive-Behavioral Influences. In Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Computer Supported Education – Volume 1: CSEDU; ISBN 978-989-758-746-7; ISSN 2184-5026, SciTePress, pages 331-341. DOI: 10.5220/0013271300003932