How to Handle Virtual Characters

Oddly enough, people placed in a simulated virtual 3D environment have the tendency to interact with the objects and people inside as if they were real. And this happens despite the fact that the participants in experiments know very well that everything is simulated. Trying to understand why individuals tend to respond to fake stimuli as if they were real (a phenomenon known as presence), experts from Europe have realized that they are gaining a great deal of insight into how the human brain actually works.

In addition, the scientists are also finding out new tips that will hopefully help them create more detailed, complex, and veridical virtual-reality environments in the future. These new spaces could open up brand new research avenues in fields such as health care, training, social research and entertainment. Social research would probably benefit the most, as bringing many people together to perform complex experiments would become a lot easier. And the very simple reason for this will be that people would no longer have to come to the research lab, but would conduct the test from the privacy of their own homes, in an environment they are comfortable with.

“Virtual environments could be used by psychiatrists to help people overcome anxiety disorders and phobias, by researchers to study social behavior not practically or ethically reproduced in the real world, or to create more immersive virtual reality for entertainment,” ICREA and University College London (UCL) Computer Scientist Mel Slater, who has been the leader of the research team, said.

The goal of the new investigation has been to establish exactly how humans respond to the fake stimuli, and how their brain works to process them. To this end, the team has been composed of scientists coming from the most diverse fields, including areas from neuroscience and psychology to psychophysics, mechanical engineering and philosophy. The way the experts have conducted the research has been fairly simple – they have created a number of situations in which the participants were involved and their reactions were assessed.

In one such instance, a room was populated with VR characters, and then a test subject was made to enter. After some time of socializing, a virtual fire broke out. Some of the computer-controlled characters remained put, oblivious to the “fire,” while others screamed in horror and fled. “We have had people literally run out of the VR room, even though they know that what they are witnessing is not real. They take their cues from the other characters,” Slater added.

The team has learned that, at least at a subconscious level, people were reacting to the fake, VR stimuli as if they were real. Their heart rates went up, sweat appeared in the palms of their hands, and their breathing patterns changed as well. “Some of the test subjects felt so uncomfortable that they actually stopped participating and left the VR environment. Around half said they wanted to leave, but said they did not because they kept telling themselves it wasn’t real,” Slater concluded, as quoted by PhysOrg.