Virtual reality full immersion techniques for enhancing workers performance, 20 years Later: A review and a reformulation

The principal aim of this article is to review and reformulate the work published by Alfaro-Casas, Bridi and Fialho [1], in 1997, about the use of virtual reality immersion techniques for enhancing workers performance'. The challenge to be solved is related to the discussion about eventual advances occurring since the publication of the original work published. The strength of the achievements relies on the open dialogue established with different human cognition theories. We consider not only Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela autopoiesis (human biological foundations theories) but also some other approaches derived from Education Sciences and Knowledge Management. The focus is on Artificial Intelligence and the use of Immersive technologies. The state of the art is established and its contributions towards the construction of knowledge are investigated, as a means for the development of formation and capacitation activities of the workforce. The methodology used is the bibliographical revision on several databases and the search of theses in the main universities. The greatest weakness of the research relies on the fact that we limited the search to documents using the English, Spanish, or Portuguese language. Some of the open immersion problems of virtual immersion are also treated.