Scientists say VR can also promote empathy. Can this make you a better person?
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Virtual reality is the hottest new thing on the media landscape. Chances are even your granny has tried 360 video! Advertisers and media companies are all scrambling to find a way to deliver VR ads and stories to consumers. Scientists say VR can also promote empathy — the ability to put yourself in somebody else’s shoes. But can VR actually make you a better person?
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WHAT IS VR?
In a nutshell, VR is the “computer-generated simulation of a three-dimensional image or environment that can be interacted with in a seemingly real or physical way by a person using special equipment, such as a helmet with a screen inside or gloves fitted with sensors.” It’s also known as 360 degree or immersive video.
WHAT IS THE HISTORY OF VR?
While it feels cutting edge, this technology has been a long time in the making. In 1838, researcher Charles Wheatstone discovered that the brain processes the same images together into a three dimensional object when the images are set together side by side. This would lead to the ViewMaster popping onto the scene in 1939 – and is basically the same idea used in Google Cardboard viewers today.
CAN VR CREATE EMPATHY?
Since then, 360 videos have exploded online. VR fans say that it creates a real sense of being there, in a refugee camp tent, or in a homeless shelter. This sense of really being there is why some fans of VR have dubbed it “the empathy machine.”
But how do you measure empathy? Even the simplest of stories can invoke the brain’s production of the neurochemicals cortisol and oxytocin. Cortisol is often referred to as the “stress hormone” while oxytocin is more the “love hormone.” Research at Stanford’s Virtual Reality lab has shown similar responses with viewers after experiencing virtual reality. In this video, we take you inside the lab to learn more about these findings.
CAN STUDENTS CREATE VR STORIES?
VR is gaining traction as a powerful technology for education. The non-profit Digital Promise provides the tools and trains students around the country to create their own VR stories. In this video, we visit one such classroom where students captured the experience of a student with social anxiety, and we see that other students gained a better understanding of the condition by watching the 360 video experience.
If you could immerse someone into your story, what story would you tell and why? What story would they get the most from, within just a few minutes in your world?
SOURCES:
Virtual Superheroes: Using Superpowers in Virtual
Reality to Encourage Prosocial Behavior
https://vhil.stanford.edu/mm/2013/rosenberg-plos-virtual-superheroes.pdf
The Hype Around Virtual Reality Is Fading
https://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2017/03/03/the-hype-around-virtual-reality-is-fading/#6fe6b6c91344
Virtual Human Interaction Lab website, Stanford University
Virtual Superheroes Project, Stanford University
Virtual Superheroes: Using Superpowers in Virtual Reality to Encourage Prosocial Behavior
360 Filmmakers Challenge, Digital Promise
http://global.digitalpromise.org/360-filmmakers-challenge/
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