Gear vr headset

VR content was administered using the Samsung Gear VR headset, with Samsung Galaxy Note 7 mobile phones and Sony headphones. A helmet-mounted display with headphones helps users feel a sense of isolation from their physical environment, creating a greater sense of immersion and presence. Eighteen 360-degree videos, six to 10 minutes in length, were offered. Travel destinations included: Amsterdam, Australia, Cancun, Canyon Walk, Elephants and Orangutans, Egypt, Far East, Greece, Hong Kong, the International Space Station, Ireland, Paris, Portugal, Prague, Morocco, Scuba Diving, Spain, and Turkey. The videos were curated and chosen to represent a range of tourism activities (e.g. from visiting a city to scuba diving) that allowed for changing view points in response to the viewer’s head movements and did not contain sudden scene changes which could elicit cybersickness.

Study participants were exposed to two VR environments: scenery, where the participant is exposed to a VE consisting of passive sceneries such as nature experiences; and somatic, where the VE consisted of upper and lower extremity movements (Figure 1). Two types of somatic environments were used, and participants chose the most appropriate environment based upon their self-reported location of their most prominent pain: an upper extremity VE or a lower extremity VE. While viewing the VEs, no specific commands were given, and participants were not encouraged to focus on any particular part or element of the VE. Patients underwent the two consecutive VR sessions (scenery and somatic) in a randomized order. Each VR session was 10 min in duration. The participant was permitted to leave the laboratory and move freely within the campus (in some cases for several hours) and return for the second VR session once the participant reported a return to baseline pain level.
The VR system consisted of the Samsung Galaxy S3 housed in a Samsung Gear VR headset (Figure 1). Patients were placed in a seated position on a chair or their personal wheelchair, with the ability to look around freely. Patients were instructed to report any discomfort and given the possibility to ask to stop the intervention at any time.

Three VR environments were used as visual stimuli. According to the existing literature, sweet-congruent visual cues such as round shapes, pink/red-shaded colours, and soft/smooth visual textures were incorporated into the design of the sweet environment. Meanwhile, bitter-congruent visual cues such as angular shapes, black/grey-shaded colours, and rough/grainy textures were incorporated into the incongruent/bitter environment, and the neutral environment was designed based on the test room itself, with a plain white background (Figure 2). Models were built using Rhinoceros three-dimensional (3D) software (Rhino 6.0) and rendered using Unity software (Unity, version 2019.2.13). With slight modifications, all three environments were designed based on the size of the test room (length = 3.6 m, width = 2.7 m, and height = 2.55 m), while the furniture and decorations in each environment were also adjusted for similarity in size, scale, and spatial arrangement. Android application packages (APK) of the VR environments were made freely available through three QR codes (Figure S2). Participants experienced the VR contexts through a Samsung Gear VR headset powered by Samsung Galaxy S7 smartphone. All three VR environmental designs were verified through a pilot questionnaire to ensure visual-taste association.