Inducing and measuring identity levels in professional rugby players during immersion in an interactive virtual environment

During a game, players experience substantial affective fluctuations, particularly through cognitive appraisal processes, which notably involves self-categorisation process. However, designing a mental training programme using the contextual elements of a game is still a challenge. Moreover, social contexts can be recreated in virtual reality and it has been demonstrated that people tend to have realistic affective and behavioural reactions to it. In this study, we recreated, in virtual reality, one of the key contexts that players can encounter during a rugby game, a try. After an embodiment phase, participants were standing on the field with other avatars representing the other players, surrounded by an audience of virtual supporters. We used different visual and auditory parameters creating two different kinds of social feedback. In the first condition the social feedback was aimed at inducing social identity, in the second condition the social feedback received in the virtual environment was aimed at inducing personal identity. We measured participants’ identity level before and after each condition, using interactive visual analogue scales inside the virtual environment. We also measured levels of presence and embodiment using the same method. Affective states were measured using an interactive adaptation of Russel’s affect grid, inside the virtual environment as well. Our experiment presents an innovative method aimed at inducing and measuring different identity levels in virtual reality.