Enacting Virtual Reality: The Philosophy and Cognitive Science of Optimal Virtual Experience

The standard approach to immersive virtual reality (VR) is arguably "object-centric" in that it aims to design physically realistic virtual experiences. This article deems the object-centric approach both philosophically and theoretically problematic and builds up to an alternative, "action-predicated" approach, whose aim is to simulate virtual experiences with a primary emphasis on pragmatic functionality instead. Section 1 lays out the rationale of the article and provides an outline for its general structure. Section 2 illustrates the nature of the problem being tackled and articulates a philosophically motivated critique, demonstrating the necessary limitations of the standard approach, as well as the need for an alternative. Section 3 draws on the enactive approach to cognitive science and begins the formulation of such an alternative. Section 4 completes the turn toward an action-predicated approach and argues, in particular, for a flow-based conception of immersive VR experience. Section 5 systematically discusses the methodological implications of the theoretical merits of this article by examining a design probe, Wake, conducted on participants (N = 25) in a mixed reality (MR) setting. Finally, Sect. 6 constitutes the conclusion of this article, wherein its philosophical, theoretical, and methodological efforts, as well as possible avenues for future research, are briefly noted.