Read more: 鈥�Better living through video gaming鈥�
I STAND teetering on a narrow plank above a deep, yawning pit. I inch forward, stomach lurching, but no matter how hard I try, I can鈥檛 step off into the void. Why would I want to? To prove that I am truly rational.
Despite appearances, there is actually no pit. I am standing in the at Stanford University in California. This whole 3D scene is nothing more than a precise piece of digital choreography between the sensors that are tracking my every movement, and the two screens 鈥� one for each eye 鈥� that sit in the bulky head-mounted display that I am wearing. I know all this 鈥� yet I can鈥檛 jump off. It鈥檚 only when I scrape my foot sideways until it meets flat ground where there should be empty space that the illusion is finally shattered.
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is a glimpse of how virtual reality may soon affect what we get up to in homes, offices and shops, thanks to the development of inexpensive devices that make interaction in virtual environments as natural as it is in the physical world. 鈥淭his million-dollar lab will be rendered completely obsolete,鈥� says Jeremy Bailenson, who heads the VHIL.
King of the devices that will usher in this shift is Microsoft鈥檚 game controller, first released in November 2010 as an add-on to the Xbox 360. A depth-sensing camera transfers a player鈥檚 movements instantaneously to an avatar on a computer screen, allowing them to move around inside a virtual world exactly as they would in the real world, without needing a joystick, keyboard or even the wand required by the Nintendo Wii.
Already people are finding other uses for the Kinect 鈥� from trying on virtual clothes and jewellery to videoconferences that allow participants to meet in a virtual room, where their body language can be faithfully represented. In a move to embrace this 鈥淜inect effect鈥�, on 1 February Microsoft started selling that is designed to work with Windows PCs.
Other devices are also on the way. The Kinect, which sells for $150, can鈥檛 provide the level of immersion I had with the pit, but the 鈥� though at $800 it comes at a price.
The shift to a world where virtual experiences are common 鈥� and almost as intense and meaningful as real ones 鈥� presents powerful psychological opportunities, says Bailenson. 鈥淲e think virtual reality is a way to change very entrenched behaviour.鈥�
An unpublished study by Sun Joo Ahn, a former researcher in Bailenson鈥檚 lab, who is now at the University of Georgia in Athens, serves as a case in point. To find out if behaviour in a virtual world can translate to the physical world, Ahn randomly assigned 47 people either to inhabit a lumberjack avatar and cut down virtual trees with a chainsaw, or to simply imagine doing so while reading a story. Those who did the former (five instead of six, on average) to clean up a spill 40 minutes later, showing that the task had made them more concerned about the environment.
This effect has also been seen in experiments by Bailenson鈥檚 team, who used virtual doubles that were either fatter or older than the volunteers (Journal of Marketing Research, ).
鈥淰irtual doubles that were older than the volunteers encouraged them to save for retirement鈥�
There鈥檚 still work to do, such as finding out how long such effects last, but it seems immersive virtual experiences can change people鈥檚 behaviour in useful ways. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a different way of sending out that message,鈥� says Ahn. 鈥淭his might be more effective than public service announcements.鈥�
Advertisers, meanwhile, are sure to cotton on and use the same techniques to their own end, says Ahn. , one of the original developers of the Kinect, based in Berkeley, California, conjures up a scene where diet pills are sold via an ad that takes a photo of a person and then manipulates it to make them look fatter.
Lanier sees another side too. By messing with our minds, these techniques might make people aware of the fragile nature of the self. 鈥淚 think there is a really wide range of possible outcomes and the interesting thing is what we do with the technology,鈥� he says.
