Flying like Superman in virtual reality can make you more helpful in real life. That's what my colleagues and I found in a recent study. At Stanford's Virtual Human Interaction Lab, Shawnee Baugman, Jeremy Bailenson, and I had participants enter a virtual environment and they were either given the power of flight or rode as passengers in a helicopter. They were then assigned one of two tasks: help find a missing diabetic child or tour a virtual city. Regardless of which task they performed, people who had the power of flight were significantly more likely to help a researcher pick up spilled pens in real life than the helicopter passengers were.
Embodying a superpower in virtual reality may prime players to ‘think like superheroes’ and thus facilitate subsequent helpful behavior in the real world. Alternately, participants who could fly in the game may have felt like more active participants than those who passively sat in the helicopter while performing tasks, and this more active involvement may have induced their subsequent behavior.
To read the paper in the journal PLOS ONE, clickhere. To see a short video clip about the study, click here.
And for more about superheroes, take a gander at my new book:
This is a book about seven superhero origins stories, what they reveal about the superheroes' personality, how they reflect the findings of psychological research, why we're interested in their origin stories, and what their stories can teach us about ourselves. [photo credit: Cody Karutz]
Well, I finally saw the film Avatar. Throughout the movie, I kept reflecting about virtual reality (VR) and the many different ways that it manifested while I was watching. I'm using the definition of VR as described in the paper, "Virtual Reality: A Survival Guide for the Social Scientist" by Fox, Arena, and Bailensen (2009):
Virtual reality (VR) was originally conceived as a digitallycreated space that humans could access by donning sophisticated computer equipment (Lanier, 1992; Rheingold,1991; Sutherland, 1968). Once inside that space, peoplecould be transported to a different world, a substitute reality in which one could interact with objects, people, and environments, the appearance of which were bound only by thelimits of the human imagination.
1.The most obvious example of VR was part of the film’s story: Jake, a paraplegic veteran, goes offworld to “link” with a specially grown alien life form (a Na’vi) that was based on his twin brother’s DNA. (His twin brother died and Jake has agreed to take his place; the “linking” is a form of virtual reality, where Jake’s thoughts animate the Na’vi. When Jake is hooked up to the extensive VR machine (see photo), his Na’vi literally embodies all of Jake’s thoughts, feelings and actions.) As Jake spends more time immersed in the life of his Na’vi host, that world feels more real to him than the one his “normal” body inhabits. (With this type of virtual reality, it is not the user's bodily movements that direct the avatar's movement; rather, from what I can tell of the film, it is the user's thoughts--as brain activity--that direct the avatar.)
2.Na’vis have long hair (often in braids) and at the end is a set of tendrils that can intertwine with the tendrils of certain other species on the planet. When the tendrils intertwine, the two life forms temporarily merge—experience what the other is experiencing. So, for instance, when Jake’s tendrils merge with an animal he’s trying to ride, Jake can experience the animal’s breathing, muscles, and other bodily functions, and that animal can experience Jake’s desire to turn left or right. It’s a kind of merged VR, where you experience another being’s reality while also experiencing your own. It's portrayed as an intimate experience. (This VR experience seems to arise through physical contact between the two entities, with the bodily "connectors"--the entwining of two organisms' tendrils--relaying information to create a merged virtual reality.)
3.Some of the film’s bad guys (ex-military personnel working or a corporation) also have VR experiences, but with technology (below), not with another species. Like the Star Wars AT-AT walkers on the ice planet Hoth, the Avatar company men are able to move their walkers by moving their own limbs. Their arm and finger movements are mimicked by their devices. (This method of VR is one that is more familiar in our world; the user's bodily movements lead the avatar--in this case the AT-AT-like device--to move.)
4.Finally there was my own VR experience: Just seeing the film was a virtual reality experience. I saw the film in 3-D (with glasses), and so what I saw on the screen felt more “real” and was a much more immersive experience than the normal experience of watching a film—even one that is very absorbing. And there were previews for three other 3-D films, so this is only the beginning. Okay, so it wasn't an interactive experience, but rather than watching a film, it felt as if I was witnessing the events on the screen--that I was in the environment on the screen. In that sense, I was not simply a passive viewer, but a silent participant. (This VR experience is, in fact, passive.)
The Virtual Human Interaction Lab at Stanford has done and is doing a lot of research about how we experience virtual reality--how it is similar to and different from our experience of "reality." They've also done research on how VR can be used to change our behavior for the better (including exercise more, eat less, and plan for old age). You can peruse their publications here and I highly recommend this overview article by Jesse Fox, Dylan Area, and Jeremy Bailenson. (Note: Their definition of VR is somewhat different than the one I'm using here.)
I had seen a trailer for the film Surrogates, and was intrigued by the idea that one day in the not too distant future we could live our lives virtually--through robotic surrogates that interact in the "real" world. Here's the trailer.
I haven't yet seen the film (the DVD Surrogates comes out in January), but to find out more about it, I recently read The Surrogates by Robert Venditti--the graphic novel on which the film is based. First, though, here's the premise of the book: People can purchase a surrogate robot of any race, sex, age and appearance that the buyer wants. Another option is to purchase a model that looks as you did when you were younger. In the comfort of your home, connected to your surrogate via a headset, you experience the actions of your surrogate, sense what your surrogate senses, and your thoughts animate the surrogate. The words you speak into the headset get spoken by your surrogate. It's virtual reality taken to an extreme. Police officers all use surrogates, and they can't get killed or injured in the line of duty; if a surrogate gets shot, it's simply out of commission until repairs are complete. The officer is safe at home.
Here are three (of the many) psychological nuggets that came to mind while reading the novel.
Nugget #1: Stereotyping and Prejudice
Here's a quote from the graphic novel, in an "article" about surrogates in the "Journal of Applied Cybernetics."
"The use of surrogates across demographic groups has opened a new approach to confronting inequality. Offering operators a certain measure of anonymity, surrogates render actual race and gender irrelevant and instead shift all demographic classifications to the implied race and gender of the surrogate unit being operated. The result is a cross-cultural condition of ambiguity, through which operators can remove race and gender considerations from their social interactions. When taking into account this function of ambiguity, it is logical to conclude that the proliferation of the surrogate in contemporary American culture would abolish…prejudice and stereotyping."
Would our stereotypes and prejudices evolve when everyone knows that the surrogate you see and interact may not have the same demographic characteristics as the surrogate's operator?
To some extent, this situation already occurs via the internet: If you "meet" someone through the internet, there's no way to be sure that who the person says he or she is corresponds to who he or she actually is. Would people's stereotyping shift with the use of surrogates? How much could it shift? Humans seem to be wired to sort people into social categories ("us" versus "them") so how much could this tendency be minimized if we knew that what we see isn't what is "real"?
Nugget #2: Reality Versus Virtual Reality
What is reality anyway? As I've noted in previous posts here and here, whether you experience something in virtual reality or regular reality, you've still had that experience. You could live almost your entire waking life virtually, and not necessarily feel the poorer for it. Could such a virtual reality ultimately be destructive? The quick answer is absolutely.
In the novel, the protagonist's wife almost never interacts with the protagonist in the real world; she prefers to do it through her surrogate, who looks younger and more attractive than her real self. In some sense, she seems addicted to living through this youthful version of herself. Is this drive fundamentally any different than people having cosmetic surgery to give themselves a more attractive or youthful appearance?
Nugget #3: Freed of Physical Limitations
In the novel, the inventor of the early surrogate prototype developed a motor neuron disease and became "all but paralyzed." His assistant explains:
"He created the surrogate so that he, and others like him, might have a better life."
Surrogates allow people with physical limitations to live virtually without those limitations. It would be a matter of time, I think, before surrogates came with enhanced physical abilities—stronger, faster, enhanced senses, more endurance than surrogates who were crafted to be like humans. Once surrogates were better than humans, what a downer it might be to "disconnect" from the surrogate at the end of the day. The analogy seems to be that of a superhero (or supervillain) having his or her superpowers taken away. Or taking off your prescription glasses or hearing aid, Going off steroids.
Good science fiction stories bring to the fore issues with which humans struggle. Surrogates is one of those stories, and may forecast real issues with which we'll have to grapple.
Most of us would probably agree that task-oriented role playing computer games, such as World of Warcraft and Everquest, aren’t real life. In these games, you play as a “character,” acquire objects and go on quests. Examples are World of Warcraft or Everquest”. (These games are of course a real life activity, but the “experiences” of your character aren’t real in the sense that what happens to them doesn’t happen to you: Your character may go on a quest, but you don’t really feel that you did too.)
The line gets a little bit fuzzier with games that are less task focused, and involve activities that resemble real life activities—computer role playing games like the Sims and Second Life. In these games, users create avatars—their representations in the game—who then proceed to do things that resemble real life (with the exception of flying without a plane a few others). Avatars walk around, watch a sunset, travel, meet and interact with other avatars/people, fall in love, have sex, get into fights. In these games, an avatars is, in some sense, the alter ego of the user. Users spend significant amounts of time (and money) perfecting the appearance and style of their avatar. If you’ve never played these types of games, see below for a sample.
People who spend a lot of time in these virtual worlds (is "playing these games" the right phrase?) see their avatars as extensions of themselves, and players report the sense that what happens to their avatars happens to them (Here's an example of firefighter training in Second Life; each person you see on the screen is controlled by an actual human at a keyboard, directing its actions.
Research at Stanford’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab has found that among 30,000 virtual gamers who spend upwards of 20 hours/week in their virtual worlds, 40% of the males and 53% of the females report that their virtual friends are equal to or better than real-life friends. And, as discussed in my previous post, it’s not only our minds that respond to virtual worlds as if they’re real—our bodies do too. If you’re at the edge of a virtual cliff, your heart rate will increase just as it would at the edge of a real cliff.
In an effort to provide us all in the next step in entertainment, it’s only a matter of time until companies create a cost-effective technology that make virtual worlds more authentic and interactive.
Nintendo’s Wii is a step in that direction. For those of you not familiar with the Wii, check out this ad:
(If you’re not familiar with the Wii, when people move the white remote, they are controlling what happens on the screen: playing a traditional “computer game,” virtually conducting an orchestra, or virtually playing tennis or baseball.) If you ask people using the Wii whether their experience is “real”—you might hear more ays than nays. After all, if their bodies and minds feel that they’ve had the experience, does it matter whether the visual portion of the experience occurred on a screen or monitor?
Once the Wii-type devices become even more technologically enhanced in true immersive virtual reality, the question “what is reality” seems to me to have crossed a threshold into an existential realm (or a psychophysical realm), akin to the question “if a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it, did it make a sound?”
Phobias are excessive fears that interferes with life. People with phobias typically try to avoid the feared stimulus because of the uncomfortable physical sensations that arise—often those of a panic attack: rapid heart rate, irregular breathing or the sensation of difficulty breathing, sweating, a sense of dread. If you avoid flying because of a fear of flying, it can limit your professional life and vacation activities. If you have a spider phobia, you may refuse to enter basements or wooded areas.
There's a very effective treatment for phobias: exposure. Exposure involves allowing yourself to confront the feared stimulus in a planned way for a sustained period of time (about 23-30 minutes) and noticing that nothing catastrophic happened. When you sustain attention to the feared stimulus, the uncomfortable physical sensation dissipate, and you confront head-on any irrational beliefs you may have about the feared stimulus. For instance, when someone with a spider phobia is exposed to a spider, he or she learns that, in fact, nothing awful happens beyond the physical discomfort of the anxiety symptoms, which pass with time. Ditto for fear of flying—beyond the physical discomfort of the anxiety, nothing catastrophic happens because of flying per se. (Of course, any method of transportation has risks: people get hit walking down the street, riding their bikes, in their cars.)
In learning that no harm befalls them other than their own physical anxiety, they can rethink their fears: "Hm…so I didn't go crazy from being around the spider, and it didn't bite me and turn me into some type of freakish creature…maybe I don't need to be so afraid of it" or "Hm…maybe my fear and worry wasn't actually keeping the plane in the air…maybe I can relax a bit and not view the plane ride as a death sentence." With repeated exposure to the feared stimulus--more time around spiders, more plane flights—the anxiety and physical reactions lessen even more.
There are several different ways exposure can be undertaken:
imaginal exposure—using your imagination to form mental images of the feared stimulus
in vivo exposure—being exposed to the actual feared stimulus. A percentage of people seeking treatment for phobias hestitate to use this method because they feel it will be "too much" for them.
virtual exposure—being exposed to a "virtual" stimulus, such as virtual reality of the feared stimulus (on the high-tech end) to photographs or recordings of sounds of the feared stimulus (on the low-tech end). For more about virtual exposure, click here,
Here's an example of virtual exposure to an airplane.
Recent research suggests that as a treatment for some phobias, such as fear of flying and fear of heights, virtual exposure is as good as in vivo exposure. Even thought the virtual world is a bit cartoonish, users are able to confront the feared stimulus and learn that their almost automatic fear reaction is out of proportion to the situation. People were able allow the virtual reality to simulate reality to the point where there was no difference in people's responses to the two different types of reality.
To me, the fact that people respond to exposure with virtual reality as well as if it was "real" is remarkable. In the next blog posting, I'll talk more about virtual reality as is relates to gaming.
comes out in January), but to find out more about it, I recently read 
by Robert Venditti--the graphic novel on which the film is based. First, though, here's the premise of the book: People can purchase a surrogate robot of any race, sex, age and appearance that the buyer wants. Another option is to purchase a model that looks as you did when you were younger. In the comfort of your home, connected to your surrogate via a headset, you experience the actions of your surrogate, sense what your surrogate senses, and your thoughts animate the surrogate. The words you speak into the headset get spoken by your surrogate. It's virtual reality taken to an extreme. Police officers all use surrogates, and they can't get killed or injured in the line of duty; if a surrogate gets shot, it's simply out of commission until repairs are complete. The officer is safe at home. 
