Reflective Motion and a Physical Canvas: Exploring Embodied Journaling in Virtual Reality

Paper Title

Reflective Motion and a Physical Canvas: Exploring Embodied Journaling in Virtual Reality

Publication Info

• Topic area: Embodied reflection and journaling in virtual reality (VR)
• Keywords: Embodied journaling, virtual reality, reflection, somaesthetics, emotional processing, motion-based expression, self-awareness, introspection, reflective technology, user study

Background and Problem

• Problem / challenge: Traditional journaling primarily relies on written language, which filters and processes emotions differently than other forms of expression. Prior work on reflective technologies has focused on language-based or guided approaches, leaving unexplored how the human body and motion can serve as a medium for reflection.
• Significance: Understanding how embodied journaling differs from written journaling can reveal new ways to process emotions and reflect on experiences, potentially uncovering subconscious feelings and fostering introspection.
• Motivation and related work: Inspired by somaesthetic theories emphasizing the primacy of movement in meaning-making, the study builds on prior works in reflective technologies, journaling, and VR. However, existing VR systems often guide reflection through prompts or artifacts, while this work isolates the body as the sole medium of expression to explore its natural reflective affordances.

Solution

• Proposed approach: The concept of embodied journaling in VR, where participants use their body movements and voice to express and reflect on experiences, with the process recorded for later review.
• Novelty:
  1. Introduction of embodied journaling as a new reflective practice using motion and voice.
  2. Development of a VR system to support embodied journaling, including avatar-based motion tracking and replay.
  3. Comparative evaluation of embodied journaling versus traditional written journaling.
  4. Insights into how non-linguistic modalities influence emotional expression and reflection.
• Procedure and key techniques:
  • Participants journaled about a resolved negative experience in two conditions: written journaling and embodied journaling in VR.
  • The VR system used real-time motion tracking (Meta SDK, VRIK, Mediapipe) and offline pose reconstruction (WHAM) to capture and replay participants’ movements and speech.
  • Participants later reviewed their journals in a second session, reflecting on their experiences and interpretations.

Results

• Concrete findings:
  • Written journaling facilitated precise, structured reflection during creation (reflection-in-action), while embodied journaling prioritized raw emotional expression, with reflection occurring during review (reflection-on-action).
  • Embodied journaling revealed subconscious emotions through motion and paralinguistic cues, such as tone and gestures, which were less accessible in written journaling.
  • Quantitative measures showed significant differences in reflection and self-focused thinking during creation (higher for writing) but reversed during review (higher for embodied journaling).
• Advantage over baselines: Embodied journaling allowed participants to uncover emotions they were previously unaware of and provided a different temporal structure for reflection compared to writing.
• Experiments / evaluation:
  • A within-subject user study with 20 participants (balanced for VR and journaling experience) compared embodied and written journaling across two sessions.
  • Data collection included PANAS (affect), R2T2 (reflection and rumination), MEQ-SF (memory recall), and semi-structured interviews.
• Limitations and future work:
  • Sample demographics leaned toward young adults with high self-reflection scores.
  • Initial uncertainty about how to use the body for journaling and limitations in synchronous motion tracking.
  • Future work could explore longitudinal studies, diverse populations, and enhanced VR setups with interactive elements or props.

Summary

This paper introduces embodied journaling, a novel reflective practice using body motion and voice in VR, contrasting it with traditional written journaling. A user study revealed that embodied journaling fosters raw emotional expression and delayed reflection, uncovering subconscious feelings through motion and paralinguistic cues. While written journaling supports structured, immediate reflection, embodied journaling shifts reflection to the review phase, offering complementary benefits. The work highlights the potential of non-linguistic modalities for introspection and proposes design recommendations for future reflective systems.