Is seeing believing? The effects of virtual reality on young children’s understanding of possibility and impossibility

Abstract

This study explored the effects of virtual reality on young children’s understanding of possibility and impossibility. It involved four-year-old children (30 boys and 30 girls) who were randomly allocated to a virtual reality group, a video group, or a picture book group. Each child was individually presented with three impossible and three matched possible events using their assigned medium. After each event, children were asked whether it was possible in real life and why/why not. Children in the VR group were more likely to correctly judge the possibility of possible events than children in the video group and they were more likely to incorrectly judge the possibility of impossible events than children in the video group. Furthermore, they were more likely to correctly judge the possibility of possible events than impossible events. The results suggest that virtual reality affects four-year-old children’s understanding of possibility and impossibility. Practical implications of these findings are discussed.