We tend to think of voting as the pinnacle of rational civic engagement: careful deliberation, critical assessment of arguments, and a sober march to the ballot box. But what if wearing a virtual reality headset could nudge your political decision-making enough to change your vote?

That’s a challenge to the very notion of political rationality, and it’s one that a team of researchers in Switzerland recently put to the test. Their experiment, using a fictitious popular vote, is somehow disquieting: Virtual reality (VR), simply by virtue of its immersive power, can sway how people vote, sometimes regardless of the arguments presented.

The researchers began with a seemingly simple premise: Could the format in which political information is presented—in this case, traditional text versus an immersive VR experience—affect how people vote? And if so, would it matter whether the arguments were in favor of or against the initiative?

To test this, they crafted a scenario around a fictional but realistic Swiss initiative to fund a national Hyperloop system, an ultra-high-speed travel system. Participants first read a brief description and cast an initial vote. Then, they were split into groups: Some read more detailed arguments in text form; others experienced a virtual journey inside a Hyperloop pod,........

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