The popularity of virtual reality (VR) has increased rapidly in recent years. While significant technological advancements are apparent, a troublesome problem with VR is that between 20% and 80% of users will experience unpleasant side effects such as nausea, disorientation, blurred vision and headaches—a malady known as Cybersickness. Cybersickness may be caused by a conflict between sensory signals for self‐motion: while vision signals that the user is moving in a certain direction with certain acceleration, the vestibular organs provide no corroborating information. To resolve the sensory conflict, vestibular cues may be down‐weighted leading to an alteration of how the brain interprets actual vestibular information. This may account for the frequently reported after‐effects of VR exposure. Here, we investigated whether exposure to vection in VR modulates vestibular processing. We measured vestibular‐evoked myogenic potentials (VEMPs) during brief immersion in a vection‐inducing VR environment presented via head‐mounted display. We found changes in VEMP asymmetry ratio, with a substantial increase in VEMP amplitude recorded on the left sternocleidomastoid muscle following just one minute of exposure to vection in VR. Our results suggest that exposure to vection in VR modulates vestibular processing, which may explain common after‐effects of VR.

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Despite the perceived benefits of implementing virtual reality (VR) training in elite sport (Gray, 2019), arguably the most important element – the thoughts, knowledge, and experiences of practitioners – has been largely understudied. Therefore, the present study aimed to explore practitioners’ knowledge of VR, current and past usage, important factors for implementation, and perceived obstacles in elite football and baseball via an online questionnaire. Football respondents (n = 25) represented practitioners from major football leagues across the world, and baseball respondents (n = 15) represented practitioners from Major League Baseball. Both football and baseball respondents reported that the most important factor for implementation of VR training was improvement in on-field performance, whether this be mental, tactical, or technical. Furthermore, both football and baseball respondents highlighted cost as the biggest obstacle at their current club. Notably, Mann-Whitney U tests revealed that football respondents perceived coach (p = .02) and executive approval (p < .001) as significantly greater obstacles than baseball respondents. Regression analyses showed that a lack of executive approval was best predicted by the obstacle of cost (p = .02), whereas a lack of coach approval was best predicted by general negative perceptions of VR (p < .01). Mann Whitney U tests also revealed that football respondents had a significantly higher mean rating for obstacles (p < .01) and significantly lower perceived knowledge of sport-specific VR than the baseball respondents (p < .001). These findings have considerable implications with regard to the potential application of VR training in football and baseball.

Fantasy football ("soccer" in North America, Australasia, and certain other countries) is a rapidly growing online game with over seven million individuals playing the Official Premier League version alone. Whilst there is an abundance of anecdotal evidence associating the game with mental health concerns, to date there has been no empirical research conducted in this field. This study aimed to address this by having fantasy football players (N = 1995) complete questionnaires measuring low mood, anxiety, functional impairment, and problematic behavior in relation to playing the game. Descriptive statistics revealed that only a minority of players experienced mental health concerns toward fantasy football; however, it was also found that individuals who engaged most in fantasy football (i.e., high time spent playing, researching, and thinking about the game) had significantly worse mental health scores toward the game than those who engaged less. Interestingly, experience in fantasy football showed the opposite effect. It may be that players of fantasy football establish coping mechanisms over time or develop an emotional numbness to the game. Future research should explore this, as well as investigate other factors (such as in-game success, social media use, and perceived locus of control) that may impact the feelings of low mood, anxiety, functional impairment, and problematic behavior that can exist when playing fantasy football.

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