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Virtual reality is especially helpful in sports psychology because it provides athletes with the opportunity to immerse themselves into the game to gain a greater understanding. It helps in providing a different perspective on the game as well as from the different positions. Additionally, it can help with visualization, a key aspect in sports psychology. Many athletes struggle with visualization and the use of VR can help to make it much easier to help them prepare for competition. It can also help athletes prepare for pressure situations and learn how to work around that while competing which is highly important because stress and pressure are both prominent components of athletics.
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This site discusses how both collegiate and professional athletes are taking advantage of VR's unique qualities to help improve their training techniques. Traditional training techniques involve watching film footage to learn about how the team is performing. Now, with the availability of VR, teams can actually experience what it is like and understand the game on a whole new level. VR provides the athletes with the opportunity to be immersed in the material that they are trying to learn rather than having it at a distance like with original video footage. The athlete is literally inside the play as it is taking place. According to the site, "A quarterback wearing a VR headset can take a simulated snap and physically turn his head left or right in real time as the play progresses, helping him learn both the progressions of his wide receivers and the positioning of the defense." The site also discusses the technology behind using VR for training in athletics and the additional work that is put in to make this happen. It also mentions that it can not take the place of regular practice, but it can help enhance the process and give the teams using this technology a competitive edge.
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This study examined the use of VR systems for displaying realistic environments that could potentially trigger anxiety which would allow for resilience-training systems to help prepare athletes for competition in high pressure situations. They created a goalkeeping application where participants were required to defend the goal against penalty kicks using their own bodies. They had three independent variables: known anxiety triggers, field of regard, and simulation fidelity. The results illustrated that VR is useful in producing anxiety-inducing situations. Anxiety triggers as well as simulation fidelity were connected to anxiety while field of regard had an inverse relationship. Further research will show whether VR can be used to aid in long-term reduction of sports-induced anxiety.
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This article examines some of the uses of VR environments for current psychological research. Additionally they look at the advantages and disadvantages of VR in visual perception. Some of the advantages of VR are that it allows for greater control over stimulus presentation, multimodal sensory input, a variety of response options, etc. They also take into account some of the disadvantages as VR such as VR-induced side effects as well as that immersion alone may not be sufficient to make the participant feel as if they are really there and the factors that need to be taken into consideration to make this possible.
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This article discusses the importance of visualization in preparation for competition. Researchers in this study used a virtual environment of the Salt Lake City Olympic Oval as a tool to help athletes visualize to prepare for the 2002 Winter Olympic Games. 5 skaters from the Canadian Olympic team used the program and found the environment to be very realistic. The skaters mentioned that they found having the virtual environment to help them visualize to be very helpful since many of them struggled with visualization in the past. The results indicated that after using the environment athletes felt less anxious, more prepared for their race, had a plan, and had more tools to help prepare for the race. Overall the results promote the use of virtual environments to enhance athletes' visualization.
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