Interpupillary Distance Constraints in Pediatric VR: Implications for Psychology and Psychotherapy

arXiv:2604.15328v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Virtual reality (VR) is increasingly used across psychology, from research and assessment to counseling, psychological treatment, and psychotherapy, with growing applications for children and adolescents. In these contexts, VR is often treated as a relatively neutral delivery medium. This assumption may be misleading. Most consumer head-mounted displays (HMDs) have been designed primarily for adult anthropometry, including adult interpupillary distance (IPD) ranges. As a result, some children may be excluded from participation or may receive a systematically degraded perceptual experience because the device cannot be adequately aligned to their visual anatomy. This paper argues that IPD constraints in consumer VR headsets represent an underrecognized methodological and clinical problem in pediatric psychology and psychotherapy. If headset fit affects visual comfort, depth perception, attentional load, cybersickness, willingness to remain in the simulation, and sense of presence, it may also influence engagement, emotional processing, dropout, and treatment response. The headset may therefore function as a selection mechanism, shaping who is included in studies, who can tolerate intervention, and to whom findings can be generalized. Using published developmental IPD data, official headset specifications, and examples from pediatric and youth-oriented VR studies, we show that anthropometric mismatch is likely to disproportionately affect younger children and those at the lower end of the IPD distribution. Using Meta Quest 3 as a case study, we argue that pediatric VR research and therapy should treat headset compatibility as part of psychological method rather than as background technical detail.