Virtual reality has long been used, or sought to be used, for therapeutic purposes. Giuseppe Riva and others have been interested in the applications of virtual reality and virtual worlds for medical and psychological therapies for over two decades — almost from the beginning of research into virtual worlds technologies.
On September 2nd, NBC Nightly News in the United States reported on Dr. Hunter Hoffman’s SnowWorld project. While you can learn more specifics about the project’s research by visiting the website, this brief news story, and its web-only follow-up, are interesting for two reasons that relate to people’s sense-making of virtual worlds.
First, as a discussion of virtual worlds technologies within the more mainstream, public sphere of a largely watched nightly news program, the news story could help non-users make sense of virtual worlds:
Most likely, when people who are non-users of virtual worlds technologies hear about such media products, their perception and interpretation of them is of games people (i.e. young, socially isolated men) waste their time with, become addicted to, spend too much money on, and so forth. Here is a news story discussing a more serious application of this technology, and linking it with the military, which is the most serious institution in the United States. This news story could be an example of a shift in sense-making about these technologies as they begin to diffuse and more fully integrate into people’s everyday lives.
Second, what this broadcast story and the web-only content illustrate is an important aspect of virtual worlds technologies for researchers consider. What’s interesting is that in the web-only content part of this story is that the news report expands the story to discuss a woman who uses the virtual world and hypnosis to alleviate her chronic pain:
What is interesting about this connection is that the focus is not on the virtual worlds technology as alleviating the pain, but on the role of the mind in the situation of engaging with the virtual world. By connecting, through editing, engaging with a virtual world to the completely psychological process of hypnosis, the focus of the discussion moves away from the technology and on to the perceptions and interpretations of the technology by the person, and how these reactions relate to a sense of presence and the creation of a mental distraction to focus the brain away from reacting to pain receptors in the body. To me, this indicates the importance of remembering the role of interpretation when discussing what is a virtual world and what a virtual world means to the person engaging with it.
To find out more about this line of research, search our public collection for relevant articles.
An ongoing subproject here at the Virtual Worlds Research Project is to create depositories of information regarding virtual worlds.
The goal of these depositories is to create central locations for information that can help with research and knowledge about virtual worlds and related technologies. Thus, we hope you feel free to peruse them, use them, and comment on them to improve them. Also, please feel free to invite others to participate in these depositories.
The first depository is a library database collecting articles from any academic field that reference research of or assist in researching virtual worlds. This database is being constructed using the online library and citation service, Mendeley. You can view this library by following this link to the public collection. There are currently over 1000 articles, conference papers, and so on, to browse.
The second depository is a Google Document collecting information on all virtual worlds (from games to hybrids to socials) that are currently active or have been deactivated in the past. There are currently 800 worlds listed with links to either find them and/or find out more about them. You can view this collaborative document here:
With both depositories, we are always looking for more to be added. If you can think of any references for the library or worlds for the list that could be added, then please let us know — or, in the case of the Google Document, add them following our established format. Regarding the list of virtual worlds, if you can think of any adjustments that need to be made, please let us know, and we will do so.
We would also be interested in hearing how you are using these depositories, and any ideas you have for other depositories. We are currently working to establish a database of all representations of virtual worlds and related technologies in pop culture. Please let us know if you any suggestions, comments, questions, and so forth.
For the next Virtual Worlds Workshop, Augmenting Reality in the Public Domain, we have invited Professor Gunnar Liestol from the Department of Media & Communication, University of Oslo. Gunnar Liestol will present his work on Situated Simulations, a new mobile augmented reality genre. The day will also cover governmental efforts to incorporate virtual worlds in tourism and education in Singapore, a discussion on the concept of engagement, and future plans for reconstructing aspects of the Sea Stallion Journey in an interactive experience platform.
Join us Friday, October 1st 2010, 10:00 to 17:30, room 43.3.29, house 43, at Roskilde University. The workshop is open to all interested. Lunch is included so please register no later than September 24th to dixi@ruc.dk or phone +45 4674 3813. See arrival info and map here.
Program (as pdf)
10:00 Welcome, Professor Sisse Siggaard Jensen, Roskilde University
10:10 Virtual Worlds From the Other Side of the World: The hybrid and educational virtual worlds of Singapore, Post Doc CarrieLynn D. Reinhard, Roskilde University, and Post Doc Mikala Hansbøl, Danish School of Education
12:30 Lunch
13:30 Situated Simulations, Professor Gunnar Liestøl, Dept. of Media & Communication, University of Oslo
15:00 Coffee break
15:15 What does engagement do? Studies in kinds of engagement, Professor Sisse Siggaard Jensen, Roskilde University
16:00 Reconstructing the Sea Stallion Journey – an interactive experience platform
Professor John Gallagher, Roskilde University
16:15 Wrap up, Professor Sisse Siggaard Jensen, Roskilde University
16:30 Drinks and get-together
About SitSim: A situated simulation requires a broadband (3G) smartphone with substantial graphics capabilities, GPSpositioning features, accelerometer and electronic compass (magnetometer). In a situated simulation there is approximate identity between the users visual perception of the real physical environment and the users visual perspective into a 3D graphics environment as it is represented on the screen. The relative congruity between the real and the virtual is obtained by letting the camera position and movement in the 3D environment be determined by the positioning and orientation hardware. As the user moves in real space the perspective inside the virtual space changes accordingly. A situated simulation is closely related to mixed and augmented reality. While mixed reality, including mobile augmented reality (MAR) is characterized by different combinations of virtual and real representations along the reality-virtuality continuum, a situated simulation is a ‘clean screen’ solution where there is a distinct (although minor) difference between the virtual perspective via the device and the real perspective of the user. Current versions of the system run on Apple’s iPhone 3GS.
Looking forward to your registration and participation!
This PhD-course, September 20-23 2010, is hosted by Ursula Plesner & Maja Horst at the Department of Organization at CBS
Guest faculty: Anne Beaulieu, Virtual Knowledge Studio, Amsterdam, Mike Michael, Goldsmiths, University of London, Barbara Czarniawska, University of Gothenburg.
Course aims: The aim this course is to interrogate how we might devise concrete research strategies based on Actor-Network-Theory’s material semiotic approach, in particular the principles of symmetry and agnosticism. A premise underlying the concept of actor-networks is that we should not strive for the reconciliation of dualities (between, for instance, subject/object, material/symbolic, virtual/real), but completely dissolve them and follow how heterogeneous actants are interwoven in complex assemblages that both comprise and transcend such categories. Now, while ANT scholars have argued theoretically for the dissolution of dualities and offered countless empirical stories of heterogeneous networks, the ANT literature is rarely particularly articulate about what we could call middle-range methodological issues regarding, for instance, casing, delineation, etc. Hence, although theoretical discussions and empirical examples are part of this course, it will give priority to discussions about challenges arising from concrete research designs. If we consider ANT a methodology of the in-between of ‘the virtual and the real’, ‘the immaterial and the material’, ‘the social and the technical’, we might ask how we turn this type of methodological sensibility into concrete strategies.
More information about the course can be found here
This video was produced from a panel discussion at the 2010 International Communication Association conference in Singapore. The panelists are Dmitri Williams (University of Southern California), Mikala Hansbøl (Danish School of Education), Caroline Ho (National Institute of Education, Singapore), and CarrieLynn D. Reinhard (VWRG, Roskile University).
Each person discussed a method/ology used for a particular study, and what was learned from that experience. Each person also discussed what they learned from listening to the other panelists. In the third part of the discussion, questions from the audience were taken: those questions were edited out as it was promised to the audience that they would not be heard on camera.
Highlights of the panel discussion are:
Dmitri Williams speaks about large scale quantitative data analysis from 00:02:00-00:12:00.
Caroline Ho speaks about analyzing discourse strategies qualitatively from 00:12:00-00:19:30.
CarrieLynn D. Reinhard speaks about merging quantitative and qualitative methods from 00:19:30-00:29:30.
Mikala Hansbøl speaks about qualitative analysis of a serious educational game from 00:29:30-00:40:00.
The question and answer period is from 00:51:15-01:08:00.
If you have any questions, please email CarrieLynn at carrie@ruc.dk or in the comments section below. We welcome more discussion on the fundamental concepts discussed in this video.
The following is a videorecording of a presentation by Ursula Plesner at the 2010 International Communication Association conference in Singapore. The focus of the presentation is in understanding the changes in communication activities within the field of architecture with the introduction of virtual world technologies.
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