A new study by UCLA psychologists reveals that when VR is used to teach language, context and realism matter.
Psychologists had people learn words from two phonetically similar languages in virtual reality environments. Those who learned each language in its own unique context mixed up fewer words and were able to recall 92% of the words they had learned. In contrast, participants who had learned both sets of words in the same VR context were more likely to confuse terms between the two languages and retained only 76% of the words. Regardless of group, those participants who felt immersed in the VR world remembered more than those who did not feel immersed.
That finding suggests that virtual reality can enhance learning if it is convincingly produced and if different languages or scholastic subjects are taught in highly distinctive environments.
Source: sciencedaily.com
