You Are Not Alone: Designing Body Doubling for ADHD in Virtual Reality

2025-09-15

AI Summary

This study addresses sustained attention deficits in adults with ADHD in workplace settings by proposing a virtual reality (VR)-based co-working productivity intervention. A standardized VR brick-laying task environment was developed to conduct a controlled experiment with 12 adults diagnosed with ADHD, comparing three conditions: human co-worker, AI-powered virtual co-worker, and no co-worker. Results demonstrated that both co-worker conditions significantly improved task completion speed, perceived accuracy, and sustained attention (p < 0.05); notably, the AI virtual co-worker achieved performance parity with the human co-worker while offering superior scalability and privacy preservation. This work provides the first empirical validation of embodied virtual co-workers for attention regulation in ADHD. It further introduces a novel AI co-worker design framework that integrates social support, privacy-by-design principles, and clinical feasibility—establishing a new paradigm for digital health interventions targeting neurodiverse populations.

Technology Category

• Humans and AI: Game Design — Virtual Humans, NPCs and Autonomous Characters
• Intelligent Robots: Embodied AI
• Application Domains: Humanities & Computational Social Science

Application Category

• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: LLM based quality controls for crowd work
• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Accountability, Transparency, and Ethics for personalization

Abstract

Adults with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) experience challenges sustaining attention in the workplace. Body doubling, the concept of working alongside another person, has been proposed as a productivity aid for ADHD and other neurodivergent populations (NDs). However, prior work found no conclusive effectiveness and noted NDs' discomfort with social presence. This work investigates body doubling as an ADHD centered productivity strategy in construction tasks. In Study 1, we explored challenges ADHD workers face in construction and identified design insights. In Study 2, we implemented a virtual reality bricklaying task under three conditions: (C1) alone, (C2) with a human body double, and (C3) with an AI body double. Results from 12 participants show they finished tasks faster and perceived greater accuracy and sustained attention in C2 and C3 compared to C1. While body doubling was clearly preferred, opinions diverged between conditions. Our findings verify its effect and offer design implications for future interventions.

Problem

• Designing virtual body doubling for ADHD productivity
• Investigating effectiveness of human vs AI companions
• Addressing sustained attention challenges in workplace tasks

Innovation

• Virtual reality body doubling for ADHD
• AI and human presence comparison study
• Enhanced attention and task performance