STANDFORD, Calif. July 12 - What is experienced in a virtual reality(VR) setting can influence one's perception of reality, according to a study by Standford University's Jeremy Bailenson. This alteration of real-world behaviors can have a positive or negative influence Bailenson told PBS in interview.
"I think of virtual reality like uranium," Bailenson said. "It can heat homes, and it can destroy nations."
In one of Bailenson's experiments, the VR user was instructed to cut down a giant tree. In a real world setting, cutting down one of these virgin trees would provide a life-time supply of soft, buttox friendly, unrecycled toilet paper. This experience, according to Bailenson, has caused some experimentees to stop purchasing unrecycled toilet paper. Another experiment Bailenson is testing has participants inhabit a cow being led to slaughter, giving them a more visceral experience of the slaughterhouse process. Could this deter carnivorous behaviour?
"These experiences we give you in this lab pale by comparison to a video game that kids play it for hours a day," Bailenson said. "My job is to create virtual experiences that can help, and also to inoculate the world to understand that when you have these virtual experiences, they're not free. They change the way you think about yourself."
SOURCE: PBS NewsHour
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