We present results from a controlled experiment with N=47 participants conducted in a mixed reality environment to assess explicit and implicit learning of cognitive structures instantiated by socio-emotional components. To this end, we implemented a custom version of MR4ISL, the Mixed Reality software tool for Implicit Social Learning, with a task involving colors, numbers, and emotions. Our results show evidence of explicit learning with participants’ responses being attributed to conscious response bases, rules, and memory.

We present XR4ISL, an XR system designed to support psychology experiments examining Implicit Social Learning, a fundamental phenomenon that guides human behavior, cognition, and emotion. We discuss XR4ISL with reference to MR4ISL, a previous system designed for Mixed Reality only, and reflect on differences between Mixed and Virtual Reality for psychology experiments.

We present MR4ISL (Mixed Reality for Implicit Social Learning), a HoloLens application designed to examine the psychological aspects involved by implicit social learning, a key process responsible for information acquisition at an unconscious level that influences humans' behavioral, cognitive, and emotional functioning. We describe the engineering details of MR4ISL, present our roadmap for identifying technical solutions for believable animations of virtual avatars relevant for implicit social learning, and exemplify use cases of MR4ISL that emerged from discussions with three researchers from psychology. To date, MR4ISL is the only tool that uses mixed reality simulations to increase the external validity of psychological research in the study of implicit social learning.

With this position paper, we want to draw the attention of the community toward theoretical work and practical opportunities that have been overlooked so far regarding concepts, principles, and design knowledge for the user experience of Augmented and Mixed Reality content, I/O devices, interactions, applications, and systems. Despite considerable innovations in commercial products and research prototypes enabling Augmented and Mixed Reality worlds, how to design great user experiences in such worlds has been overall neglected at core, while the information and knowledge currently available to practitioners cover usability aspects mostly. Therefore, we advocate for theoretical foundations of the user experience in Augmented and Mixed Reality and propose several directions for more scientific research in this regard.