Today, virtual reality and immersive environments are lines of research which can be applied to numerous scientific and educational domains. Immersive digital media needs new approaches regarding its interactive and immersive features, which means the design of new narratives and relationships with users. Additionally, ICT (information and communication theory) evolves through more immersive and interactive scenarios, it being necessary to design and conceive new forms of representing

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... n and improving users' interaction with immersive environments. Virtual reality and technologies associated with the virtuality continuum, such as immersive and digital environments, are emerging media. As a medium, this approach may help to build and represent ideas and concepts, as well as developing new languages. This review analyses the cutting-edge expressive, interactive and representative potential of immersive digital technologies. It also considers future possibilities regarding the evolution of these immersive technologies, such as virtual reality, in coming years, in order to apply them to diverse scientific, artistic or informational and educational domains. We conclude that virtual reality is an ensemble of technological innovations, but also a concept, and propose models to link it with the latest in other domains such as UX (user experience), interaction design. This concept can help researchers and developers to design new experiences and conceive new expressive models that can be applied to a wide range of scientific lines of research and educational dynamics. In this paper, we consider VR not only as a technological tool but also a concept related with the power and possibilities of supporting new emerging realities never seen or experienced before. VR is therefore a technology with many interactive possibilities, especially in an immersive approach related with 3D images and sound, but also with the possibility of encompassing other human senses and perceptive channels. The possibilities of creating innovative languages (using expressive and communicative approaches) based on the whole range of human perception are almost unlimited, and depend on technological evolution in the first stage. In this paper, languages are understood as the expression of cultural reality [2] and ways of interacting with technology and the environment [3], as well as a natural language interface [4] . In this way, this manuscript aims to contribute with new approaches departing from communication theory [ Figure 1 ], and analysing the current state of VR technologies as well as the ways technology interacts with users, and users interact with information. This contribution is based on a literature review of current VR technology and its applications. We also propose a conceptual approach where we try to define and situate the components of immersive environment-human interaction, such as with virtual objects, devices, interactions, devices or narratives. We also aim to define a wider field than virtual reality, considering that technology has allowed us to integrate new senses in the experiences. This wider field of reality keeps three main factors in mind which may help to conceptualise new experiences with digital information: artificiality, simulation and alternative (ASA). Thus, virtual reality and immersive environments, as part of the emerging technological evolution involving our senses and cultural, symbolic and representative factors, may present interdisciplinary approaches. These approaches contribute to creating new languages, which involve disciplines such as interaction design, human-computer interaction, user experience and interface, and even affective computing, which have new approaches in recent years with the evolution of ICT. Among these new approaches, we can find the evolution of the research methods in human-computer interaction, as Lazar et al. describe in their research work [5] . These research methods include current approaches in analyses of human factors such as eye-tracking, motion tracking in virtual environments, and the position of different parts of the body. Lazar et al. also integrate in such research methods the human factors related with kinetics, such as motion tracking in virtual environments or muscular and skeletal position sensing. More innovative approaches also include research in inclusivity focusing on disciplines such as user-centred design, as Coleman et al. describe in their work [6] . Interaction design also has innovative approaches in the latest technology, being relevant in designing and classifying systems related with virtual reality and immersive environments, as Earnshaw do [7] . They attempt to define the main components of the current generation of virtual reality systems and focus on "key areas and domains: software, hardware, interactivity, technology, application interfaces, cognitive factors and ethical issues" The design of interactive systems has also been applied to natural user interfaces in immersive environments and virtual reality systems. The approaches in body language and gestures, through the interaction design approach, have also evolved in interfaces for manipulating objects in virtual reality [8] . Additionally, user experience, interaction design and human-computer interactions have been classified under taxonomical categorisation for designing virtual reality systems [9] . The design of the user interfaces has also evolved with virtual reality systems and immersive environments, where some authors [10] [11] [12] suggest that research and advances in human-computer interaction and interaction design should be brought closer to standards of universal usability. These standards are a useful tool to be applied in disciplines related with human factors, ergonomics and, therefore, in medical research, presenting a strong potential in domains related with neuroscience. In medical sciences, user experience applied to virtual reality and immersive environments are the basis for developing a neurofeedback scenario, especially in the recovery of patients with cognitive disorders and victims of accidents that caused strokes [13] .