Rossi Cristina, Varghese Rini, Bastian Amy J
Department of Neuroscience, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, 21205, 3 USA.
Center for Movement Studies, Kennedy Krieger Institute, Baltimore, MD, 21205, USA.
ArXiv. 2025 Apr 30:arXiv:2504.21696v1.
Virtual reality (VR) is increasingly used to enhance the ecological validity of motor control and learning studies by providing immersive, interactive environments with precise motion tracking. However, designing realistic VR-based motor tasks remains complex, requiring advanced programming skills and limiting accessibility in research and clinical settings. MovementVR is an open-source platform designed to address these challenges by enabling the creation of customizable, naturalistic reaching tasks in VR without coding expertise. It integrates physics-based hand-object interactions, real-time hand tracking, and flexible experimental paradigms, including motor adaptation and reinforcement learning. The intuitive graphical user interface (GUI) allows researchers to customize task parameters and paradigm structure. Unlike existing platforms, MovementVR eliminates the need for scripting while supporting extensive customization and preserving ecological validity and realism. In addition to reducing technical barriers, MovementVR lowers financial constraints by being compatible with consumer-grade VR headsets. It is freely available with comprehensive documentation, facilitating broader adoption in movement research and rehabilitation.
虚拟现实（VR）越来越多地被用于通过提供具有精确运动跟踪的沉浸式、交互式环境来提高运动控制和学习研究的生态效度。然而，设计基于VR的现实运动任务仍然很复杂，需要先进的编程技能，并且在研究和临床环境中限制了其可及性。MovementVR是一个开源平台，旨在通过在无需编码专业知识的情况下在VR中创建可定制的、自然的伸手任务来应对这些挑战。它集成了基于物理的手与物体交互、实时手部跟踪以及灵活的实验范式，包括运动适应和强化学习。直观的图形用户界面（GUI）使研究人员能够自定义任务参数和范式结构。与现有平台不同，MovementVR无需脚本编写，同时支持广泛的定制，同时保持生态效度和现实性。除了降低技术障碍外，MovementVR还通过与消费级VR头显兼容降低了财务限制。它可免费获取并带有全面的文档，便于在运动研究和康复中更广泛地采用。
