Using virtual reality could make you a better person in real life

by Thuong Hoang, The Conversation

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

If you've ever participated in a virtual reality (VR) experience, you might have found yourself navigating the virtual world as an avatar. If you haven't, you probably recognise the experience from its portrayal in film and on television.

07 july 2019--Popular media has brought us characters like Jake Sully in Avatar, Wade Watts in Ready Player One, and Danny and Karl in the Black Mirror episode Striking Vipers.

In these examples, the character's virtual alter-ego is physically different from who they are in the real world. The connection between the real person and their virtual avatar is called "embodiment". If you have a strong sense of embodiment when using VR, you might feel as if your virtual body is your own biological body.

Virtual embodiment provides an opportunity to explore the world from a different point of view. And studies have shown that experiencing new perspectives in the virtual world can alter your behaviour in real life.

How virtual embodiment works

Virtual embodiment isn't entirely new. PC or console role-playing games generate a similar effect, albeit to a lesser extent. VR technology creates a far greater sense of immersion in the virtual world than two-dimensional screen experiences.

That's because successful 3-D virtual environments use more senses, compared with just visual and audio in 2-D screen-based technologies. This approach ensures the user is fully engulfed in the synthetic world, which they experience through their virtual avatar.

Immersive visuals in VR trick the user into believing they are elsewhere, such as atop Mount Everest or at the Eiffel Tower. By presenting separate images to each eye, a 3-D effect can be achieved when the user incorporates the information from each screen in the VR headset.

These visuals are captured with 360-degree photography or video cameras. Alternatively, actual photography or video can be used in VR environments.

Appropriate 360-degree sound also plays an important role as it can help convince the user of the authenticity of the virtual world.

Touch, smell and 'body ownership'

The sense of touch is a common form of sensory feedback. Every time you feel your mobile vibrate in your pocket, you're interacting with "haptic" technology.

In VR, haptic devices simulate physical sensations that are triggered when avatars interact with virtual objects. There are devices that can alter an avatar's weight distribution or aerodynamics to mimic what is happening in the virtual environment. Real physical props can also be used to introduce real-life challenges to VR sports. Haptic sensations can even be created in mid-air.

Smell, or olfactory sense, is another important mechanism that improves engagement within a virtual world. A Kickstarter campaign for a VR mask that can simulate the sense of smell using aroma capsules has exceeded its funding target, demonstrating the level of interest in multisensory VR.

In addition to extra senses, VR gives the user a sense of body ownership over the virtual avatar. Body ownership refers to the self-attribution of a (virtual) body. This can be achieved by synchronising multiple sensory feedback.

For example, when the user can see their virtual hand being touched and can feel the haptic sensation at the same time, they are more likely to believe the virtual body is theirs. This is demonstrated by the famous rubber hand experiment.

How virtual bodies affect behaviour

People respond differently to virtual avatars depending on who they are and the characteristics of the avatar. For example, a recent study found that women dislike their virtual avatar having male hands, whereas men are more likely to accept avatar hands of any gender.

Another study found that racial bias decreases when caucasians are represented by avatars that have darker compared with lighter skin.

The body shape of the avatar also affects behaviour. Researchers found that game players showed increased physical activity in the real world if they regularly played games with thin avatars as opposed to obese ones.

This suggests that the identities of virtual avatars can take precedence over our usual identities.

Choosing the right path

The ability to embody a virtual avatar blurs the lines between what's going on in the headset and what's happening in real life. It feeds the freedom to explore and experiment, whether that's with a different personality, gender or physicality.

But the option has to be available in the first place if it's going to have an impact. PC Gamer reported this week that the developers of the medieval multiplayer game Mordhau were considering introducing female and racially diverse skin tones into the game. The suggestion (which they deny) that they were also planning to give players the option to turn off this diversity if they don't like it led to a wave of backlash within the gaming community.

Our own research with older adults has also revealed frustrations with the lack of flexibility in avatar creation tools, such as the inability to modify personal characteristics like facial features and fitness levels.

Embodiment is powerful. It can influence your self-identity, perception, and behaviours both in and outside of virtual worlds. The onus is on the future designers and developers of this technology to ensure this power is used for good.

Provided by The Conversation 

Augmented reality app may aid patients with Parkinson's

Rice engineering students have designed an iPhone app to help patients overcome a symptom known as “freezing,” in which the legs temporarily refuse to follow the brain’s command to lift and move forward. In visual mode, the app places a circle or other object over what the camera sees in front of users and encourages them to step into the graphic. Credit: Jeff Fitlow

15 april 2018--It's appropriate that during Parkinson's Awareness Month, a team of Rice University seniors will show how augmented reality may help patients with the disease.
Six Rice engineering students have designed an iPhone app to help patients overcome a symptom known as "freezing," in which the legs temporarily refuse to follow the brain's command to lift and move forward.
For many of these patients, researchers have found that visual, audio or vibratory cues can help them overcome freezing. The Rice app may be the most elegant and comprehensive way to date to provide those cues, according to the students.
The app takes advantage of new programming tools that allow for the incorporation of augmented reality. In this case, the user can point the phone at the floor or sidewalk and trigger it to place the image of a block, circle or other object where his or her foot should land. That visual cue is often enough to allow patients to initiate their gait.
The app can also provide audio or sensory cues through the phone's sound and vibration capabilities. It should be adaptable to Android phones as well, according to the students.
"This is for patients who, in their day-to-day lives, experience freezing episodes," said team member Gaby Perez. "There are a couple of devices on the market to help them, but none of them incorporate all three kinds of cues."

Rice senior engineering student Jeremy David shows the user interface of an iPhone app intended to help patients with Parkinson’s disease maneuver. Credit: Jeff Fitlow

Perez and her Stairway to Stability teammates, Theresa Sonka, Kristen Smith, Keshav Rao, Jeremy David and Dan Burke, all bioengineering majors, took on the challenge as their capstone design project, required of most Rice engineering seniors. They were advised by bioengineering lecturer Eric Richardson with help from Dr. Eugene Lai, a neurologist at Houston Methodist, and sponsorship by Karen and Richard Whitney. The team said client and partial sponsor Nora Bynum was an influential adviser during development of the app.
Their creation is certainly smaller and cheaper than what they referred to as the state of the art for patients, a cane with a laser attachment. "Every time you place the cane down, the laser line pops up in front of you, cueing the user to step over it," Sonka said. "But a lot of the time, these laser solutions have trouble working outdoors."
"What's cool about our project is that the cheapest solutions available right now are about $200, with some solutions costing as much as $3,000," David said. "Our solution, however, has the potential to work more effectively and at a fraction of the cost."
Because some patients may also experience tremors in their hands, the team created a lanyard phone case a patient can wear to make the phone easier to manipulate.
The team worked with the Houston Area Parkinson Society to recruit patients who are helping them test the app at Rice's Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen, Burke said. "Our goal right now is to prove that the concept of augmented reality can be used in a therapeutic context while maintaining the user-friendly nature of smartphones."
"The patients we've talked to are a little on the milder end and are still able to walk, but each one of them has started to see instances of freezing, whether it be just for a few seconds or on the order of minutes," Rao said. "They've each talked about the mental gymnastics they go through to be able to move their feet again. They're very interested in anything that can reduce that burden."
The students appreciate the irony that their solution for people with Parkinson's would make them look like everybody else who walks down the street staring at a cellphone.
"Another big criterion was social comfort," Smith said. "We wanted it to be a very discreet solution."
The team plans to demonstrate the app at the annual George R. Brown School of Engineering Design Showcase April 12 at Rice's Tudor Fieldhouse. The event opens to the public at 4:30 p.m., with the winners of cash prizes announced at 6:30. As many as 80 teams are expected to compete this year.

More information: Follow the team at oedk.rice.edu/Sys/PublicProfile/41416142/4330110


Provided by Rice University

Virtual reality training may be as effective as regular therapy after stroke

A blood clot forming in the carotid artery. 

Using virtual reality therapy to improve arm and hand movement after a stroke is equally as effective as regular therapy, according to a study published in the November 15, 2017, online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

18 nov 2017--"Virtual reality training may be a motivating alternative for people to use as a supplement to their standard therapy after a stroke," said study author Iris Brunner, PhD, of Aarhus University, Hammel Neurocenter in Denmark. "Future studies could also look at whether people could use virtual reality therapy remotely from their homes, which could lessen the burden and cost of traveling to a medical center for standard therapy."
The study involved 120 people with an average age of 62 who had suffered a stroke on average about a month before the study started. All of the participants had mild to severe muscle weakness or impairment in their wrists, hands or upper arms. The participants had four to five hour-long training sessions per week for four weeks. The participants' arm and hand functioning was tested at the beginning of the study, after the training ended and again three months after the start of the study.
Half of the participants had standard physical and occupational therapy. The other half had virtual reality training that was designed for rehabilitation and could be adapted to the person's abilities. The participants used a screen and gloves with sensors to play several games that incorporated arm, hand and finger movements.
"Both groups had substantial improvement in their functioning, but there was no difference between the two groups in the results," Brunner said. "These results suggest that either type of training could be used, depending on what the patient prefers."
Brunner noted that the virtual reality system was not an immersive experience. "We can only speculate whether using virtual reality goggles or other techniques to create a more immersive experience would increase the effect of the training," she said.


Provided by American Academy of Neurology

Virtual experience gets the elderly to exercise

Credit: Aalborg University

Virtual Reality can get the elderly in nursing homes to be happier about exercising. A new research project from Aalborg University shows that the technology motivates older people in nursing homes to get moving.

21 oct 2016--One of the major problems in nursing homes is that many older people do not move enough. Although nearly all nursing homes in Denmark offer access to fitness facilities and physical therapists, many of the residents rarely get their heart rate up. This needs to be addressed because physical activity keeps the body – and the brain – in shape and makes the elderly more self-reliant. A new PhD project from Aalborg University now shows that new technology in the form of virtual reality may be just the thing to get seniors on exercise bikes.
Jon Ram Bruun-Pedersen of the Multisensory Experience Lab in the Department of Architecture, Design and Media Technology at Aalborg University Copenhagen attempted to turn exercise for the elderly from a chore into a digital experience.
"All too often the elderly end up sitting and looking at a wall or staring passively into a television. As a rule they're usually not particularly motivated to exercise, partly because getting moving again after a long period of inactivity can cause pain, and partly because it's not particularly interesting to sit and look at a wall while you bike," he said.

Long ride in front of a screen

In conjunction with physical therapists at the Copenhagen nursing home Akaciegården, Jon Ram Bruun-Pedersen conducted a study where large TV screens were set up in front of the exercise bikes in the activity room. While they biked, they rode through various virtual landscapes on the TV screen.
The 21 elderly residents who participated in the study could choose among things like riding on a park road between green lawns, lakes, flowers and butterflies; through a snowy pine forest; or on a mountain side. The bikes were linked with the screens so that the speed the subjects biked with reflected their speed through the landscape.
"The study showed that seniors were really happy with the experience," says Jon Ram Bruun-Pedersen. "They really lived it and felt as if they had to pedal extra hard to get up the hill on the screen—even though they really didn't feel higher resistance on the bike."

On with the goggles

In the next part of the study, Jon Ram Bruun-Pedersen made the experience more intense. He equipped the elderly subjects with Virtual Reality goggles – a sort of diving mask with small screens in front of the eyes that makes you feel like you're being led into another world because you can look around the landscape. When you turn your head, it feels like you're looking around in reality – you can see out over the edge of the mountain, see the birds fly in the sky above and move freely around between buildings, plants and trees.
The illusion is very true to life, and the elderly subjects vividly experienced being out in the great outdoors—even though they were still on an exercise bike in the physical therapy room at the nursing home.
"We set the study up so the participants could ride in the same landscapes they knew from the screens. They took to the experience amazingly well. For many people stepping into a virtual world can be an overwhelming experience, but theelderly subjects had a surprisingly high tolerance threshold," explains Jon Ram Bruun-Pedersen.

New possibilities

From the interviews Jon Ram Bruun-Pedersen conducted with study participants you can see that the elderly's desire to use exercise bikes significantly increased.
"This is really positive," he says. "Partly because it is good for them physically to move more, but also because I wanted them to experience getting out of the nursing home and out in the world – even if it's a virtual world."
The beneficial effects of using Virtual Reality with the elderly are not limited to getting them in better physical shape. Jon Ram Bruun-Pedersen mentions the increased quality of life by "getting out" and experiencing something.
"It may well be you can't get out of the nursing home and take a plane to Mallorca or a bus to the Harz mountains, but you can experience what it's like to go for a walk in the mountains or visit some of the world's great attractions. It could also be that you'd like to go for a walk in your childhood neighborhood or something else that has had great significance," he says. "The possibilities are there with Virtual Reality."

Great demand

The study at Akaciegården was completed earlier this year, but it's hardly the last time the elderly had VR goggles on. After the study ended, Jon Ram Bruun-Pedersen was contacted by the physical therapists he worked with who now want to use virtual reality in their training programs for the elderly in the future.
Both the residents at the nursing home and a number of their relatives have also requested that the technology become a fixture in the gym.


Provided by Aalborg University