Effects of Self-focused Augmented Reality on Health Perceptions During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Web-Based Between-Subject Experiment

Abstract

Background Self-focused augmented reality (AR) technologies are growing in popularity and present an opportunity to address health communication and behavior change challenges. Objective We aimed to examine the impact of self-focused AR and vicarious reinforcement on psychological predictors of behavior change during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, our study included measures of fear and message minimization to assess potential adverse reactions to the design interventions. Methods A between-subjects web-based experiment was conducted to compare the health perceptions of participants in self-focused AR and vicarious reinforcement design conditions to those in a control condition. Participants were randomly assigned to the control group or to an intervention condition (ie, self-focused AR, reinforcement, self-focus AR × reinforcement, and avatar). Results A total of 335 participants were included in the analysis. We found that participants who experienced self-focused AR and vicarious reinforcement scored higher in perceived threat severity (P=.03) and susceptibility (P=.01) when compared to the control. A significant indirect effect of self-focused AR and vicarious reinforcement on intention was found with perceived threat severity as a mediator (b=.06, 95% CI 0.02-0.12, SE .02). Self-focused AR and vicarious reinforcement did not result in higher levels of fear (P=.32) or message minimization (P=.42) when compared to the control. Conclusions Augmenting one’s reflection with vicarious reinforcement may be an effective strategy for health communication designers. While our study’s results did not show adverse effects in regard to fear and message minimization, utilization of self-focused AR as a health communication strategy should be done with care due to the possible adverse effects of heightened levels of fear.

Remote evaluation of augmented reality interaction with personal health information

“…These studies were conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, a time when personal and public concerns for health have become more pronounced. These studies demonstrate the potential of AR as a medium that encourages non-experts to assess health risks using the affordances of immersive design that has been shown to impact health perceptions (Regenbrecht et al, 2011;Jung et al, 2019;Ku et al, 2021;Seals et al, 2021). While study 1 visualizes omic information to users on their personal bodies, study 2 overlays omic information to users on the personal environment of the kitchen.…”

“…Ku et al (2021) found the AR game, Pokemon-Go, to promote mental and physical health as its game design and AR functionality encourage the formation and maintenance of social relationships and outdoor physical activity. Empirical studies have evaluated the impact of self-focused AR (layering health risks onto the body) on health risk perceptions, finding an increase in perceived threat susceptibility, severity, negative affect, and behavioral intentions when compared to control conditions (Jung et al, 2019;Seals et al, 2021).…”

“…Ratcliffe et al (2021) found COVID-19 to have negative implications on VR/AR research as it resulted in research suspensions, recruitment difficulties, and challenges reducing the likelihood of viral transmission in in-person studies. During this time, there was an increase in discussions around remote evaluations of AR (Alexandrovsky et al, 2021;Ratcliffe et al, 2021), early research to develop new AR evaluation methodologies (Ghasemi and Jeong, 2021), and non-moderated online AR research (Seals et al, 2021;Zhao et al, 2021).…”

“…Existing research shows the potential of AR as a tool for communicating personal health information that influences behavior and perceptions related to health. For example, previous research suggests that AR can lead to a user taking on the role of the character in a narrative (Javornik et al, 2017;Hoang et al, 2018), increase a sense of spatial presence (Jung et al, 2019), change one's perception of physical sensations (Yuan and Steed, 2010), and influence perceived threat susceptibility, severity, negative affect, and behavioral intentions (Jung et al, 2019;Seals et al, 2021). We discuss and build on the theoretical foundation for the potential of AR within the areas of personal health.…”

“…The study utilized a mid-fidelity prototype, deployed online and tested by participants recruited from an online marketplace platform (prolific, n = 355). While quantitative findings from this study were presented in Seals et al (2021), here, we focus on the experimental design, methods, and lessons learned.…”