Virtual reality assessment of walking in a modifiable urban environment: a feasibility and acceptability study

Abstract

Physical activity is known to be one of the most health-beneficial behaviors, and salutogenic design modifications to the built environment can facilitate increased physical activity. Unfortunately, it is not often clear in advance which environmental and urban design implementations will generate increases in activities such as walking, and which will have little impact or even reduce walking. The present study tested the feasibility and acceptability of a virtual reality (VR) model for pre-testing urban designs for their impact on walking. Using a wearable VR head-mounted display/computer, young adults (n = 40) walked freely through a large indoor gymnasium, simultaneously walking through a virtual model of an urban streetscape that was designed to be modifiable and allow for testing impacts on walking of various changes to the urban environment. The majority of participants found the experience to be acceptable: pleasant and nonaversive, and they walked freely through the VR model for approximately 20 min, on average. Using modifiable VR models to pre-test built-environment changes for their impacts on walking behavior appears to be a feasible and acceptable approach and worthy of continued research investigation.

A virtual reality experiment to study pedestrian perception of future street scenarios

“…Further note, while the sample size of 43 participants used in this study with repeated measures appears to be limited, it is still comparable to other recent experiments using VR technologies studying pedestrian behaviour in built environments 29 , 30 , 34 , 52 – 55 . Moreover, our research has still precision and statistical power to provide valuable insights into most of the differences within and between subjects explored.…”

“…The advantages are, among others, that it is possible to replicate natural pedestrian behaviour in virtual environments inspired by real-world settings 29 . This allows one to communicate future designs and technology in a realistic, immersive and safe fashion, with relatively low costs and high ecological validity 30 . In fact, a comparison of virtual with real environments reveals that individuals make similar decisions when studying crossing behaviour 31 and pedestrian behaviour matches real-life norms 32 .…”

Impact of visual and textural characteristics of street walls on stress recovery

“…Nonetheless, this study has limitations. While the sample size of 48 young college students may seem sufficient compared to other VR-based studies of built environments 64 , the selective nature and small size limit broad applicability. Participants were exclusively college students, providing a limited age group perspective; future research should include a more diverse demographic encompassing various genders, ages, and cultural backgrounds to assess aesthetic preferences comprehensively.…”

Exploring Virtual Environments to Assess the Quality of Public Spaces

“…Oselinsky et al [14] explored the acceptability of virtual reality assessment for walking in a virtual environment, particularly for pre-occupancy urban designs impacting walking. The study employed a wearable VR head-mounted display with a backpack computer, allowing young adults (n = 40) to freely walk through a large indoor gymnasium while virtually navigating a model of a modifiable urban streetscape.…”