VR has been used successfully in a number of psychology-driven
domains such as virtual reality exposure therapy (VRET), military
training, and flight simulator training [2-4]. We wanted to determine
if the training benefits that have been observed in other VR domains
could also generalize to athletics. We hypothesized that high-fidelity
VR systems could be used to display realistic 3D environments to
induce anxiety, which is a prerequisite for resilience-training systems
that will prepare athletes for real-world, high-pressure situations [5].
To investigate the potential of using VR for sport psychology
training, we developed an application called Virtual Goalkeeper for
the Virginia Tech Visionarium VisCube (a CAVE-like display
system). The basic purpose of Virtual Goalkeeper is for users to
defend against simulated penalty kicks using ecologically valid
athletic motions. The application leverages head tracking to monitor
the user, and to determine whether the user moved quickly enough in
the correct direction.
Using Virtual Goalkeeper, we designed a controlled, withinsubjects
experiment with three independent variables: known anxiety
triggers, field of regard (the degree to which the display surrounds