What is this study about?

This is a replication and extension of prior work from Weiczorek et al. 2024 on virtual reality–based mindfulness interventions, synthesizing recent empirical studies to determine what these interventions actually do and how they are being defined. It examines psychological outcomes such as stress, anxiety, and emotional regulation alongside emerging physiological measures, while maintaining methodological continuity with earlier reviews and applying effect size analysis where possible. At the same time, it introduces an AI-augmented workflow—using tools such as Rayyan, SciSpace, and large language models—to evaluate not only the evidence itself, but how contemporary evidence synthesis is being shaped by these tools .

The study also takes a critical position on how mindfulness is operationalized. It shows that most VR-based interventions are grounded in secular, Western psychological frameworks that extract mindfulness from its original Buddhist context, often redefining it as a tool for stress reduction or performance rather than deconditioning of reactive mental processes. By pairing empirical synthesis with conceptual analysis, the dissertation identifies methodological weaknesses in the literature, highlights inconsistencies in how mindfulness is defined and delivered, and examines the epistemological consequences of translating a Buddhist psychological system into technological and biomedical domains.