Experience with head-mounted virtual reality (HMD-VR) predicts transfer of HMD-VR motor skills

Abstract

Immersive, head-mounted virtual reality (HMD-VR) has the potential to be a useful tool for motor rehabilitation. However, when developing tools for rehabilitation, it is essential to design interventions that will be most effective for generalizing to the real world. Therefore, it is important to understand what factors facilitate transfer from HMD-VR to non-HMD-VR environments. Here we used a well-established test of skilled motor learning, the Sequential Visual Isometric Pinch Task (SVIPT), to train healthy individuals in an HMD-VR environment. We examined whether learned motor skills transferred to a more conventional (non-HMD-VR) environment and what factors facilitated transfer. Our results suggest that on average, learned motor skills from this task transfer from an immersive virtual environment to a conventional environment; however, some individuals did not transfer the learned motor skills. We then examined individual differences between those that did show transfer and those that did not. We found that individuals who had previous exposure to HMD-VR were more likely to transfer their learned motor skills than those who did not. Individual differences in previous exposure to HMD-VR environments prior to training may serve as a predictor to whether learned motor skills will transfer out of HMD-VR.