Recent meta-analytic evidence suggests that students’ minds are likely to wander off-task frequently, regardless of the learning modality; yet virtual reality (VR) has been notably unexplored in this space. VR may present an opportunity to mitigate task-unrelated thought (TUT; the most common operationalization of mind wandering) because it minimizes audio-visual distractions and increases feelings of immersion. The current study tested this possibility by analyzing TUT frequency reports from 118 participants as they learned about climate change in one of two conditions: a 360° video in VR versus a traditional video on a 2D monitor. Participants answered momentary thought probes at pseudo-random intervals throughout the video and eye-gaze was recorded in both modalities. Results indicated that participants were less likely to experience TUT in the VR condition compared to non-VR (B = 0.49; p = 0.02). Consistent with prior research, TUT was also negatively related to posttest performance (B = −0.05; p = 0.01). Finally, TUT mediated the effect between learning modality on posttest performance, such that participants in VR experienced lower TUT and subsequently scored higher on the posttest (B = 0.19; p = 0.03). We also present exploratory analyses on how gaze patterns differed across modalities as well as how gaze was related to instances of TUT.

最近的元分析证据表明，无论学习方式如何，学生的思维都可能经常偏离任务。然而，虚拟现实 (VR) 在这一领域尚未得到探索。VR 可能会提供一个机会来减轻与任务无关的想法（TUT；走神最常见的操作），因为它可以最大限度地减少视听干扰并增加沉浸感。当前的研究通过分析 118 名参与者在以下两种情况之一了解气候变化时的 TUT 频率报告来测试这种可能性：VR 中的 360° 视频与 2D 显示器上的传统视频。参与者在整个视频中以伪随机间隔回答瞬时思维探索，并以两种方式记录眼睛注视。结果表明，与非 VR 条件相比，参与者在 VR 条件下经历 TUT 的可能性较小（B = 0.49；p  = 0.02）。与之前的研究一致，TUT 也与测试后表现呈负相关（B = −0.05；p  = 0.01）。最后，TUT 调节了学习方式对后测表现的影响，使得 VR 中的参与者经历了较低的 TUT，随后在后测中得分更高（B = 0.19；p  =  0.03）。我们还对不同模式的注视模式有何不同以及注视与 TUT 实例的关系进行了探索性分析。