We are excited to share that our research paper titled "Seeing Is Not Thinking: Testing Capabilities of VR to Promote Perspective-Taking" has been awarded Best Paper at IEEE VR 2025. This collaborative work brings together researchers from multiple institutions: Dr. Eugene Kukshinov and Dr. Lennart E. Nacke (HCI Games Group, University of Waterloo), Anchit Mishra (PhD student, Games Institute, University of Waterloo), Professor Nicholas Bowman (Syracuse University), Federica Gini (PhD student, University of Trento), and Professor Brendan Rooney (University College Dublin).
Paper Overview:
Virtual Reality (VR) is often praised as a powerful tool for promoting empathy and perspective-taking (PT)—the ability to understand others’ thoughts and feelings—by allowing users to "step into someone else's shoes." However, our research challenges this assumption, investigating whether VR alone, particularly when using a first-person perspective (1PP), truly facilitates cognitive perspective-taking beyond emotional engagement.
To examine this, we designed a study using a 2 (perspective: first-person vs. third-person) x 2 (task: perspective-taking task vs. no task) experiment, measuring participants' PT through think-aloud protocols. Surprisingly, while first-person perspective increased perceived embodiment, it did not enhance actual perspective-taking unless participants were given an explicit task prompting them to reflect on the character's perspective. This suggests that simply seeing through another's eyes is insufficient—without directed cognitive engagement, users default to their own viewpoint.
Our findings emphasize the need for intentional VR design that includes targeted tasks or prompts to truly foster perspective-taking. For VR to live up to its potential as an "empathy machine," content and task design matter more than just the visual viewpoint.
Full Paper:
- E. Kukshinov, F. Gini, A. Mishra, N. Bowman, B. Rooney, and L. E. Nacke, "Seeing Is Not Thinking: Testing Capabilities of VR to Promote Perspective-Taking," IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1109/TVCG.2025.3549137
Video Presentation:
You can watch our video presentation from IEEE VR 2025 below, which summarizes the study and its implications for VR design: