[Air-L] New publication on Environmental Virtual Reality

[Urooj Raja]

Dear colleagues,

I’m pleased to share this new publication, online first in *Environmental
Communication. *A Qualitative Exploration of Individual Experiences of
Environmental Virtual Reality Through the Lens of Psychological Distance.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17524032.2020.1871052


ABSTRACT

How to increase public engagement in environmental issues is a central
question in environmental communication and environmental psychology
literatures. Psychological distance (PD) is one potential barrier to public
engagement. PD describes the perceptual distance between a person’s
experience and an external target. Immersive technologies such as virtual
reality (VR) have the potential to shrink PD. Yet, we know little about how
people perceive and react to an environmental VR experience or about the
role that PD plays in these reactions. To address this gap, we use
interviews and focus groups to examine how people react to a VR experience
about ocean acidification. We find that PD is prevalent in the reactions of
VR users, especially first-time users, and that 62% of participants
described feeling psychologically close to ocean acidification.

Best,
Urooj S. Raja
PhD. Candidate
NSF GRFP Fellow
Environmental Studies
University of Colorado at Boulder

https://twitter.com/uroojra