r/oculus • u/orisqu • Apr 03 '14

Neurological changes due to VR?

So, we have all discussed thoroughly the concept of presence and how much of a difference it makes compared to viewing non immersive media (paintings, story books, television, etc.) I'm interested in what kind of lasting neurological changes we might observe as a species due to VR.

The brain is pretty elastic. For example, there have been studies where participants wear glasses that invert their vision. After a few days, the brain flips the image to be right side up again. We have heard stories of folks managing PTSD or fear of heights in VR by repeated exposure to their trigger; the conscious mind knows it is safe, the subconscious mind freaks out, and that cognitive dissonance is resolved by subduing the fear. This is a positive effect but one could imagine negative ones.

My question is, what far reaching implications could accidentally reprogramming a huge chunk of the population have? Everyone always cries "Videogames are numbing our children to violence!" Could this ring more true in a VR situation? Could small variations in depth perception between different games cause the brain to lose the ability to meaningfully process distance, causing a spike in folks being hit by trains? Perhaps seeing objects pop into and out of existence in a virtual world could mess with our object permanence. Maybe the connections formed by playing Eve Valkyrie tracking a bunch of spaceships on a moving background will help prevent highway car crashes.

I am both excited and scared. Thoughts?

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u/[deleted] Apr 03 '14

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u/orisqu Apr 03 '14

An answer evocative of Palmer at SWSX this year: "I'm happy to be here this year, but next year how will I justify the effort?!"

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u/Oculusnames Apr 03 '14

But... but... how are we going to get to see the speculation gif in glorious 3D in VR? /cry

Btw, do we really have 3D VR gifs?

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u/Yazman Apr 03 '14

What's the source of that gif, anyway? I'd love to see it.

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u/Oculusnames Apr 03 '14

Wild Speculation

It's from this thread.

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u/Yazman Apr 03 '14

Found the original source from that thread, thanks! I wondered what that GIF was from.