Researchers at Geneva University Hospitals gave 26 adults with no meditation experience a 17-minute self-compassion meditation; their response times on a perspective-shifting task fell by 68 milliseconds
People who practised self-compassion meditation while looking at an avatar of themselves in virtual reality responded faster on a task requiring them to shift into another person’s perspective than those who performed the same meditation with their eyes closed. The experiment was conducted by researchers in the Department of Clinical Neuroscience at Geneva University Hospitals and published in the international journal Mindfulness on 5 August.
Data analysed from 26 people with no meditation experience
The researchers recruited 30 people and analysed data from 26. There were 13 men and 13 women, aged between 20 and 49, with a mean age of 27.15 (standard deviation 8.15). All were healthy adults with no meditation experience. People with a history of neurological or psychiatric disorders or substance misuse were excluded.
The study used a within-subjects design. Each participant experienced both conditions, with the order assigned at random. One was the avatar-based self-compassion condition and the other was the standard self-compassion condition.
17 minutes beneath a night sky
Both conditions involved an audio-guided meditation lasting about 17 minutes. After an introductory stage, the scene changed to a night-sky environment. Participants focused on bodily sensations and their breathing for five minutes before the two conditions diverged.
In the standard condition, participants continued the guided meditation with their eyes closed. In the avatar condition, they kept their eyes open and looked at an avatar whose movements were synchronised with their own. A stimulus in which light flashed in time with the participant’s heartbeat was also presented. The method combined visual information with cardiac sensations.
The researchers used an HP Reverb G2 headset with a 107-degree field of view and a resolution of 2160×2160 per eye. Four Azure Kinect cameras scanned each participant’s body in real time to create the avatar.
Self-compassion increased in both conditions
On the State Self-Compassion Scale (SSCS), an 18-item five-point scale, the main effect of measurement time was significant (χ²(2)=29.46, p〈0.001). Scores in the avatar condition rose significantly from baseline (t=6.68, p〈0.001, Cohen's d=0.94), as did those in the standard condition (t=5.53, p〈0.001, d=0.80). The difference between the two conditions was not significant (p=0.25).
On the SOFI scale, which measures four immeasurable qualities directed towards oneself and others, positive characteristics were highest in the avatar condition (4.07), followed by the standard condition (4.01) and baseline (3.85). Negative characteristics were lowest in the avatar condition (1.44).
The difference emerged on the perspective-shifting task
The two conditions differed most clearly on the ‘own-body transformation task’ (OBT). In 192 trials, participants were shown a drawing of a person facing forwards or backwards for 200 milliseconds and asked to decide whether the displayed hand was the left or right hand. The task measures the ability to project oneself into another person’s body.
In the avatar condition, response times fell by an average of 68.24 milliseconds (t(25)=-4.33, p=0.002, Cohen's d=-0.85). The 23.39-millisecond reduction in the standard condition was not significant (p=0.28). A direct comparison also found that the reduction was significantly greater in the avatar condition (χ²(1)=10.53, p=0.001). There was no difference between the conditions in accuracy.
There was no difference between the two conditions in heartbeat intervals, heart rate or heart-rate variability measured by electrocardiography.
Avatar condition leads on perspective-shifting ability
The researchers concluded that multisensory perceptual cues may support perspective-shifting while encouraging empathic engagement with oneself. Both forms of meditation increased self-compassion, while the avatar condition performed better on perspective-shifting ability, the experiment’s central finding.
The study also has clear limitations. The sample was small, at 26 people; race, ethnicity and socioeconomic status were not collected systematically; and the study was not preregistered. As all the participants had no previous meditation experience, it is not known whether the same results would be seen in people with meditation experience. The internal consistency of the self-compassion scale at baseline was also somewhat low (McDonald's ω=0.64).
The findings should also be understood as short-term changes observed after a single 17-minute session. As meditation programmes using VR devices become more common in South Korea, further experiments of this kind are likely to examine what produces the effects.
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