Time in suspense: investigating boredom and related states in a virtual waiting room.

We studied the role of time in the experience of boredom and its relationship with various psychological states using virtual reality. Sixty-six participants visited nine virtual waiting rooms and evaluated their perception of time and psychological experiences, including boredom, exhaustion, restlessness, amotivation, frustration, anger, unhappiness, spontaneous and deliberate mind-wandering, fantasy, and absorption. Results confirmed the relationship between boredom and time perception, showing that the higher the levels of boredom, the slower time seems to pass. However, manipulating time-related information via a slower/faster ticking clock did not affect boredom. We also found that boredom increased as participants progressed through the nine virtual rooms, and its affective characterisation over time remained stable, while its cognitive characterisation fluctuated. While boredom was consistently associated with exhaustion, restlessness, amotivation, and frustration, its relationship with fantasy, absorption, spontaneous mind-wandering and deliberate mind-wandering, evolved over time. These findings provide novel insights into the intricate and differentiated cognitive and affective consequences of being bored.

Reinstating location improves mnemonic access but not fidelity of visual mental representations.

In a virtual reality environment combined with a continuous delayed estimation paradigm, we investigated how manipulation of location at recall (i.e., corresponding vs. non-corresponding to the location where the object was previously encoded) affected mnemonic access and mnemonic fidelity of color information in 100 participants with a within-subjects design. We predicted that the reinstatement of location during recall would improve mnemonic access and mnemonic fidelity. The results suggest that congruent location enhances color access. However, congruent location seems to play no role, or a small role not yet identified in enhancing the details of visual mental representations (weak evidence for the null hypothesis). Explorative analyses revealed that self-reported object imagery preferences modulate the effect of location manipulation on mnemonic access. Overall, the results support the conceptualization of spatial information as a basic feature to help access visual mental representations. Taken together, these findings are in line with the scaffolding hypothesis of visual mental imagery.

Database of virtual objects to be used in psychological research.

Although many visual stimulus databases exist, to our knowledge, none includes 3D virtual objects, that can directly be used in virtual reality (VR). We present 121 objects that have been developed for scientific purposes. The objects were built in Maya, and their textures were created in Substance Painter. Then, the objects were exported to an FBX and OBJ format and rendered online using the Unreal Engine 4 application. Our goal was to develop the first set of high-quality virtual objects with standardized names, familiarity, and visual complexity. The objects were normed based on the input of 83 participants. This set of stimuli was created for use in VR settings and will facilitate research using VR methodology, which is increasingly employed in psychological research.