Author: Dr. Evgenia Leonova
“The idea of technological transcendence from the physical body via immersion in virtual reality is problematic because it is based on a misleading dichotomy of mind versus body.” – MELANIE CHAN
“Only when we aren’t scared of the big “what if?” and embrace the moonshot thinking required to work in VR will we be able to help move this medium forward to its full potential”. – RESH SIDHU
“Dreams are messages from the deep.” – Dune
Augmented Reality was introduced to the world at the beginning of the 20th century. The story starts with one cinematography enthusiast, Morton Heilig, who created a multisensory experience to pull the audience into his storytelling with the help of a stereoscopic color display, fans to provide wind, odor emitters, a stereo-sound system, and a moving chair to simulate motion. The invention was welcomed with enthusiasm and was the beginning of the new era of multi-sensational experiences and the term ‘Virtual Reality’ was officially introduced to the world by Jaron Lanier in 1987.
Through the years, VR technology has been evolving and in the last century, the industry evolved into a remarkable stage, where the technology found its implementation in multiple industries to educate, alert, and communicate.
The first cases of VR adoption in healthcare date to the 1990s. By 2023, VR has expanded globally to a US 2.5 billion industry with a compound annual growth rate of 18.8%. Currently, the application of VR in healthcare includes surgery, diagnostics, rehabilitation, training, and education.
The idea of VR as a treatment on its own came to life only in 1995, and the same year the first cases of its application in mental health happened.
Nowadays, VR is used to treat myopia, and Parkinson’s disease, and train social skills. VR allows you to track hundreds of physiological parameters, starting from eye movements to head position, and connect them to your neurological condition. According to the more than 4,000 clinical studies published since 2008, VR demonstrated efficiency in promoting relaxation, reducing anxiety, and stress-related problems, and overcoming social isolation.
What is so special about VR?
Cognitive training in VR settings covers more cognitive categories: attention, cognitive flexibility, information processing, memory, problem-solving, motor control, and spatial orientation.
As an example, Virtuleap developed a library of cognitive exercises (games) to provide monitoring and training of multiple cognitive abilities.
Borghetti D, Zanobini C, Natola I, Ottino S, Parenti A, Brugada-Ramentol V, Jalali H and Bozorgzadeh A (2023), Evaluating cognitive performance using virtual reality gamified exercises. Front. Virtual Real. 4:1153145. doi: 10.3389/frvir.2023.1153145
VR allows us to train and rewire the brain on a new level involving multiple senses and connecting them to cognitive reasoning.
Limbix designs VR therapeutics to help individuals with insomnia, anxiety, and depression. According to their peer-reviewed clinical trial, patients experienced lasting recovery from anxiety: 71% achieved clinical improvement in anxiety and 57% reported improvement in overall mood.
Neurorehab VR develops programs to treat chronic pain, orthopedic rehab, and mental health-related conditions. According to one of their studies at the end of the 6 week trial period, the patient demonstrated significant improvements in terms of joint flexibility and pain reduction.
CogniHab develops VR therapy for autism spectrum disorders, cerebral palsy, and chronic pain-compulsive disorder (OCD). Their study has shown that VR can make people with Autism ready for public speaking.
Healium is a mental fitness tool that offers you a brain powered by your body’s electricity. Their studies have shown, that the VR+NF group showed decreases on scales measuring vigor, fatigue, and confusion, while the audio-only group showed no significant change. The VR+NF group showed significant increases in the calmness and happiness scales, which did not change significantly in the audio-only group.
Cybersickness is considered to be the main hurdle for VR implementation, which is especially pronounced in the older population. The latest scientific research shows a negative relationship between cybersickness and a sense of presence, where males experience a higher sense of presence in the VR world than females. Advanced graphics and additional sensory cues play an important role in a higher sense of presence. [https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/94600]
Interesting facts were mentioned by Carter, M et al., at New Media & Society and by Gaskin, N in TechTrends in 2023 about algorithmic bias. They mentioned the following:
- The algorithms that are built from historical educational data often amplify existing biases, further encoding the racist history of social and academic systems.
Karumbaiah, S., & J. Brooks. (2021). How Colonial Continuities Underlie Algorithmic Injustices in Education. 2021 Conference on Research in Equitable and Sustained Participation in Engineering, Computing, and Technology (RESPECT). https://doi.org/10.1109/respect51740.2021.9620605.
- AI tools can be used for ‘demographics targeting, which systematically excludes or exploits certain groups, and enhances harmful racial profiling.
Raji, I. D., Gebru, T., Mitchell, M., Buolamwini, J., Lee, J., & Denton, E. (2020). Saving face. In Proceedings of the AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society. https://doi.org/10.1145/3375627.3375820
- “Technological redlining” as a form of digital data discrimination, through a process by which peoples’ digital identities and activities are used to bolster inequality and oppression.
Noble, S. U. (2018). Algorithms of oppression: How search engines reinforce racism. New York University Press.
Healthy Happy HelpFul, by Dr. Evgenia Leonova
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