TYPE Editorial PUBLISHED 19 December 2022 DOI 10.3389/frvir.2022.1100387 Editorial: Virtual reality for OPEN ACCESS neuropsychology and affective EDITED AND REVIEWED BY Ronan Boulic, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology cognitive sciences: Theoretical Lausanne, Switzerland *CORRESPONDENCE and methodological avenues for Ali Oker, ali.oker@univ-reims.fr studying human cognition SPECIALTY SECTION This article was submitted to Virtual Reality and Human Behaviour, Ali Oker 1,2*, Florian Pecune 3 and Jordi Vallverdu 4 a section of the journal 1 Frontiers in Virtual Reality Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne, Reims, France, 2EA6291 Laboratoire Cognition Santé, Société (C2S), Reims, France, 3Laboratoire CNRS UMR 6033 SANPSY, Université de Bordeaux, RECEIVED 16 November 2022 Bordeaux, France, 4Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona (UAB) ICREA Acadèmia, Barcelona, Spain ACCEPTED 12 December 2022 PUBLISHED 19 December 2022 KEYWORDS CITATION Oker A, Pecune F and Vallverdu J (2022), affective cognition, neuropsychology, cognition, psychology, emotion Editorial: Virtual reality for neuropsychology and affective cognitive sciences: Theoretical and methodological avenues for studying human cognition. Front. Virtual Real. 3:1100387. Editorial on the Research Topic doi: 10.3389/frvir.2022.1100387 Virtual reality forneuro psychology and affective cognitive sciences: COPYRIGHT Theoretical and methodological avenues for studying human cognition © 2022 Oker, Pecune and Vallverdu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License The Research Topic presented here emphasizes the theoretical and methodological (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is contributions of the use of virtual reality to study human cognition. At a first glance, the permitted, provided the original use of novel technologies, such as virtual reality can be seen only as broader means of author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original providing richer and multimodal stimuli for experimental psychology. However, it should be publication in this journal is cited, in stressed out that the introduction of virtual reality in the field represents a serious paradigm accordance with accepted academic shift in cognitive sciences. When Wilhelm Wundt established the first laboratory at Leipzig practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does University in 1879, namely “The Institute for Experimental Psychology”, he deliberately not comply with these terms. created a separate space from other departments in which it could be possible to conduct experiments by isolating several parameters. Wundt was one of the first who recognized that behavior and even the subjective aspects of the mind itself can be observed according to independent variables created in the environment. Thus, he understood that in order to manipulate the variables that he created, he had to control other variables already present in the reality of this space. This is why a dark room was installed in this laboratory for performing psychophysical experiments on visual perception (Nicolas, 2005). This may seem insignificant by today’s standards, but virtually what Wilhelm Wundt tried to do was the manipulation of the physical reality in which modified stimuli have been exposed to participants. His work made that psychology is furthermore established as a full-fledged empirical science. More than a century after, technological advances in the field of computer sciences have also led to creating a new environment for a new kind of interface, interaction, and immersion: Virtual Reality. Following the democratization of technology, researchers in cognitive science found out that virtual reality can be a real asset for studying neuropsychology and affective cognition experimentally. The fact that it can create any familiar environment without limits Frontiers in Virtual Reality 01 frontiersin.org Oker et al. 10.3389/frvir.2022.1100387 (e.g., public transport, music theater, street . . . ) made it a pertinent applications for relaxation, stress and pain management, motivation technology for mental health studies. But more importantly, in for physical activities, and gives promising results for apathy virtual environments, researchers not only are able to manipulate treatment in elderly users. Chaby et al., also investigated how everything, but they can also create new laws of physics, stimuli and and why virtual patients can be used in psychiatry and geriatrics objects that don’t exist in the outside world. This makes the use of in order to train healthcare professionals in social skills required to virtual environments a very important paradigm shift in the field of interact with patients. They also propose recommendations, best cognitive science. Therefore, virtual reality is also increasingly used practices and uses for the design, conduct and evaluation of virtual in recent neuropsychological studies. Finally, thanks to its immersive patient training sessions. Regarding virtual characters, Stallman et al. and interactive nature, virtual environments are also being popular , proposed a new and innovative methodology article in which they by the use of affective and reactive virtual agents in social cognition provided a description of the development of a novel paradigm disorder studies (Brunet-Gouet et al., 2016). designed to test the efficacy of social emotion regulation with an Based on these observations, the Research Topic presented here is embodied virtual agent and its virtual environment, and how to gathering familiar methodological tools in cognitive science and anticipate results from typically developing and autistic youth neuropsychology coupled to the use of virtual reality, virtual populations. Finally, Oker shed some light on the link between environments and virtual agents. A first line of contributions neural underpinnings of embodied social cognition and virtual made the use of virtual reality with behavioral measures frequently agents’ pertinence for experimental studies in cognitive performed in neuropsychology and cognitive science studies such as psychopathology depicting social cognition impairments. electroencephalography (EEG), eye-tracking, heart rate variability. While it is not the first nor the last time in the literature, For instance, Cuesta et al., provided a proof-of-concept to assess the studies presented in this Research Topic show clearly how virtual potential of coupling virtual reality and EEG in aging individuals with reality and virtual agents are pertinent tools for studying subjective cognitive decline. They highlighted that, older adults did neuropsychology and affective cognitive science. We predict not suffer from cybersickness and reported positive user experience that we are just in the beginnings of a real paradigm shift in but also highlighted a significant improvement in working memory the field and, following further democratization of the head when comparing virtual intervention groups to the control group. mounted displays, virtual reality will become an acclaimed Turbyne et al., studied parameters involved in mitigating acute pain and inevitable tool in psychology labs in the next decade. by investigating whether affective and physiological responses to painful electrical stimulation differed between a first and a third person perspective in virtual reality. The results confirm that the Author contributions participants reported significantly higher tension during the third person condition. In order to investigate authentic, fear responses AO wrote the first draft. All authors have supervised the from a holistic perspective, Kisker et al., provided an immersive manuscript. experience in which they built a physical replica of a cave while participants explored with a fearful or a neutral version of it in virtual reality. During the experiment, electrophysiological correlates of fear- Conflict of interest related approach and avoidance tendencies, such as frontal alpha asymmetries (FAA) were evaluated for the first time for this kind of The authors declare that the research was conducted in the immersive conditions related to authentic fear. absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could The second line of contributions consisted of wellbeing and be construed as a potential conflict of interest. mental health issues. Batistatou et al., used virtual reality to test the impact of colorful floor markings on the spontaneous speed of walking, gaze behavior recorded by eye-tracking, as well as perceived Publisher’s note changes in and physiological measures of affective states. Their findings suggest that colors may be a powerful tool to trigger All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors alertness and pleasure in gray urban cities. On the matter of and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, improving wellbeing, Pavic et al., reviewed the scientific literature or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product on how to foster positive emotions through virtual reality. They that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its found out that the positive virtual reality experience consists of manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher. References Brunet-Gouet, E., Oker, A., Martin, J. C., Grynszpan, O., and Jackson, P. L. (2016). Editorial: Nicolas, S. (2005). Wundt et la fondation en 1879 de son laboratoire. L’Année Advances in virtual agents and affective computing for the understanding and remediation of Psychol. 105 (1), 133–170. doi:10.3406/psy.2005.3823 social cognitive disorders. Front. Hum. Neurosci. 9, 697. doi:10.3389/fnhum.2015.00697 Frontiers in Virtual Reality 02 frontiersin.org