Short-term factual recall, presence, and visio-vestibular discomfort in a 360° augmented-virtuality classroom environment: A feasibility study

As the field of virtual reality continues to advance, approaches that integrate naturalistic immersive content with artificial simulations have gained increasing scholarly attention in educational psychology, offering novel opportunities to assess learning within realistic yet experimentally controlled environments. The present pilot study evaluated the feasibility of a chroma-key augmented-virtuality (AV) system as a research and teaching tool, examining short-term factual recall, presence, and visio-vestibular discomfort among university students (n = 104) attending a prerecorded 360° AV lecture. In this system, participants were incorporated via chroma-key passthrough into a recorded classroom scene, thereby situating them physically within the virtual environment. Pre- and post-tests assessed immediate recall of lecture content alongside self-report measures of presence and comfort. Analyses revealed statistically significant improvements in immediate recall following the lecture (64.58% relative increase, p < 0.001, Cohen's d = 0.88), although absolute post-test performance remained modest (M = 4.29 of 10 items). Participants reported moderate levels of presence (M = 3.50, SD = 0.72, on the 0-6 IPQ scoring) and minimal cybersickness symptoms (M = 2.12, SD = 0.92, on the 7-point CSQ-VR scale), and presence was not significantly associated with recall. Collectively, these findings indicate that short, passive 360° AV lecture formats constitute feasible tools for investigating short-term factual recall and user experience within controlled classroom contexts.