A new study published in the *Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences* suggests that virtual reality (VR) holds immense potential to revolutionize behavioral science while simultaneously helping resolve the ongoing challenge of research reproducibility. The work, developed by 41 international authors representing a global cohort of VR researchers known as Openverse, proposes establishing open protocols and standards for the field.
Addressing Variability in VR Methodology
While VR technology allows researchers to place participants into highly realistic and controllable environments—down to minute details—the rapid advancement of the technology has led to methodological inconsistencies. The authors caution that, similar to other emerging technologies, current enthusiasm sometimes outpaces scientific rigor, risking a situation where protocols vary widely across different disciplines.
The Openverse team views this inconsistency not as a barrier, but as an opportunity for reform. They have developed an interactive checklist (accessible at www.vrprotocols.org) intended to guide researchers in all behavioral science fields. This tool helps ensure that the design and reporting of VR studies adhere to current best practices.
“VR research hasn’t been held back by the technology. It’s been held back by the absence of shared standards. These protocols give the field a common language for researchers, reviewers, and journal editors alike,” stated Anand P. A. van Zelderen, who founded Openverse and is an assistant professor at SKEMA Business School.
Three Critical Areas for Standardization
The proposed protocols focus on three key areas to improve the scientific integrity of VR studies:
- Interoperability: Currently, many VR experiments are confined to specific pieces of hardware and software. To counter this, the guidelines advocate for common programming engines, open standards, and clear licensing agreements. This ensures that simulations remain usable and can transition between different research laboratories as technology improves.
- Procedural Standardization: The protocols address situations where even identical materials can yield varying outcomes due to inconsistent measures or participant briefing methods across different labs. To mitigate this, the guidelines specify a shared set of best practices—including standardized metrics like “VR presence”—along with common ethics, safety, and accessibility requirements.
- Data Sharing: Beyond merely publishing study results, the protocols mandate sharing the underlying VR materials themselves. This includes making available the code and virtual assets so that other researchers can directly replicate or reuse the simulation.
Boosting Scientific Reliability
In addition to maintaining high standards, Openverse argues that these guidelines are crucial for tackling a major challenge in behavioral science: low reproducibility. Over recent decades, numerous studies have demonstrated difficulties in replicating past findings using the same designs and measures.
VR may offer a unique solution due to its intrinsic repeatability. Because participants can be fully immersed in a virtual environment—a method that has been successfully used globally, even on the International Space Station—the experience remains consistent regardless of physical location. As noted by Theodore C. Masters-Waage, a research scientist at the University of California, Merced, VR is more than just a research tool; it functions as an “entire portable laboratory, allowing researchers to meticulously design every part of the participants’ experience from start to finish.”
Van Zelderen emphasized that this publication represents “the first step toward the Openverse’s goal to break down paywalls and technological barriers, making VR research more widely available to all.” The ultimate aim is for these protocols to gain widespread adoption across behavioral sciences, allowing the field to flourish.
