Virtual Reality and the Enhancement of Creativity and Innovation: Under Recognized Potential Among Converging Technologies?

This article highlights virtual reality (VR) as perhaps the safest, most fully developed of the emerging technologies of cognitive enhancement and as an underused tool for the enhancement of creativity in particular. We argue that researchers, educators, trainers, designers, managers, and others concerned with innovation should be more informed about virtual reality technologies (VRTs) both because of their widespread and growing accessibility and because of the significant, synergistic contributions they can make to human performance and understanding. We present a brief consultative survey exploring the potential use of virtual worlds (VWs) such as Second Life among a group of professionals (N = 20) working in the area of creativity and innovation training. In addition to providing some useful perspectives and creativity strategies for implementation, results suggest that the possibilities represented by VRTs may not be fully appreciated by those who could make the most use of them. We argue that VRTs offer a cost-effective means of implementing and optimizing nearly all conventional individual and collaborative creativity enhancement techniques while also offering potent new possibilities and combinations not available by other means. Thus, we outline five ways VR can be used to enhance creativity and problem solving: (a) by changing aspects of the self and self-perception; (b) by optimizing interactions and collaboration with others; (c) by optimizing environmental conditions and influences; (d) by facilitating guidance or gamification of the problemsolving process; and (e) by offering an arena for the integration of other technologies of creativity enhancement such as pharmacological enhancement, brain stimulation, and neurofeedback. The article ends with a discussion of this technological convergence within the growing sciences of innovation and cognitive enhancement.