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Virtual & Augmented Reality

Virtual & Augmented Reality

Promises and Challenges of Immersive Technologies

New technologies, such as Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) offer many opportunities and challenges for a wide variety of contexts. In business, for example, VR and AR can be used for the development, launch, and communication of new products, or in helping technicians improve production processes. Although promising, it will certainly also disrupt several industries (e.g., entertainment, tourism, and real estate), as geographical location becomes less relevant, and therefore entail many challenges.

VR and AR can also become relevant tools in other disciplines, such as psychology, medicine, and education. In psychology and medicine, VR can be helpful in exposing patients to and analyzing their behavior in specific situations; AR may become an important tool during surgeries; and VR can also be used for educational purposes, such as practicing speeches in a virtual environment.

The expert practice Virtual and Augmented Reality aims to bring together academic researchers from different disciplines (e.g., marketing, economics, operations and technology management, psychologists, and health care) and experts from practice (e.g., managers, psychologists) to jointly research the potential and effects these immersive technologies have on business, consumers, health care, and education. Our objective is to advance academic knowledge on immersive technologies and provide interested parties with the newest insights to make the best-informed decisions on where and how to use VR and AR in their daily activities in order to increase their performance.

Research Projects

Research in this domain is focused on the following sub-themes:

The Development and Launch of New Products

  • Effects on outcomes of the NPD process if consumers interact in an early stage with new product prototypes in VR / AR.
  • Gaining insights into the best new product launch tactics by showing the new product in VR / AR before launch.
  • The influence on consumer acceptance (e.g., faster decision-making; faster takeoff) of new products launches with VR / AR.

Communication

  • Gaining insights into the VR / AR content that will be effective in creating new business
  • What are the psychological processes behind consumer responses towards VR / AR ads?

 (Online) retailing

  • The effect of virtual fitting rooms on business performance
  • Consumer responses to virtual stores

Logistics and operations management

  • Human-technology interaction in warehouses.

Clinical Psychology

  • Using VR to gain insights into the underlying learning mechanisms of anxiety- and fear-related disorders
  • Investigating behavioral responses in a VR setting to gain insight in (sub-clinical) pathological learning mechanisms
  • Using VR to investigate human approach and avoidance behavior in social interactions
  • Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy (VRET)
  • VR and AR as a pain management tool
Yvonne

Dr.Yvonne van Everdingen

Professor of Marketing and Innovation at RSM & Expert Practice Director of Virtual and Augmented Reality

Experts

Academic director:

  • Prof.dr. Yvonne van Everdingen, Professor of Marketing and Innovation (RSM)

 

Experts:

  • René de Koster, Professor of Logistics and Operation Management (RSM)
  • Jelle de Vries, Assistant Professor of Operations Management (RSM)
  • Xi Chen, Associate Professor of Marketing (RSM)
  • Ana Martinovici, Assistant Professor of Marketing (RSM)
  • Stefan Stremersch, Professor of Marketing (ESE)
  • Ana Scekic, Assistant Professor of Marketing (ESE)
  • Anna Bornioli, Senior Researcher Urban, Port and Transport Economics (ESE)
  • Matthias Wieser, Professor of Clinical and Biological Psychology (ESSB)
  • Marta Andreatta, Assistant Professor of Clinical and Biological Psychology and Education and Child studies (ESSB)
  • Janne Papma, Assistant Professor Neurology (Erasmus MC)

 

PhD Candidates:

  • Mahsa Alirezaei (RSM)
  • Jackie Poos (Erasmus MC