Virtual Reality and Exercise: Impacts on Affective Responses, Ratings of Perceived Exertion, Attention, and Rowing Performance

Physical inactivity is a major health concern leading to obesity and increased health concerns. To increase physical activity (PA), researchers are now considering the impact of affective variables, such as enjoyment and pleasure. Research incorporating virtual reality (VR) with exercise may increase enjoyment because the audiovisual stimulation shifts the attentional focus away from the unpleasant sensation associated with exercise. The affective responses experienced during exercise may influence future behavior, but more research is needed on the impact of VR while exercising. Utilizing a within-subject design, this study investigated the effects of different VR environments on affective responses, ratings of perceived exertion, attention allocation, and performance variables during an aerobic rowing task. A total of 30 participants (20 females, 10 males) completed three different rowing exercise conditions: VR head-mounted displays (VR HMD 360-degree immersive rowing), VR flat-screen display (VR FD), and control (rowing only) conditions. Using a VR HMD resulted in participants reporting significantly higher dissociative attention (<i>p</i> = 0.019) and increased feeling scores (<i>p</i> = 0.030) compared to the control condition. No differences were reported between the conditions on perceived exertion; however, the VR HMD condition plateaued after 15 minutes while the other conditions increased linearly with time. The control condition elicited a higher power output in comparison to VR HMD (<i>p</i> = 0.002). Enjoyment directly following the rowing task was similar across all conditions. This study serves as an initial step in investigating VR as a potential approach for enabling individuals to engage in PA.