Compassionate embodied virtual experience increases the adherence to meditation practice

Abstract

Virtual Reality (VR) could be useful to overcome imagery and somatosensory difficulties of compassion-based meditations given that it helps generate empathy by facilitating the possibility of putting oneself into the mind of others. Thus, the aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of an embodied-VR system in generating a compassionate response and increasing the quality and adherence to meditation practice. Health professionals or healthcare students (n = 41) were randomly assigned to a regular audio guided meditation or to a meditation supported by an embodied-VR system, “The machine to be another”. In both conditions, there was an initial in-person session and two weeks of meditation practice at home. An implicit measure was used to measure prosocial behavior, and self-report questionnaires were administered to assess compassion related constructs, quality of meditation, and frequency of meditation. Results revealed that participants from the embodied-VR condition meditated for double the amount of time at home than participants who only listened to the usual guided meditation. However, there were no significant differences in the overall quality of at-home meditation. In conclusion, this study confirms that embodied-VR systems are useful for increasing adherence to meditation practice.