Monthly Archives: June 2021

If you could spend the day in somebody elses shoes, your perspective of that person would likely change. Its not so easy to do in real life, but in virtual reality (VR), you can make anything happen.

Dr. Quentin Tyler is the Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Michigan State University. He came up with the idea of a virtual reality app that can help people develop empathy.

This app is a way to meet people where theyre at, Dr. Quentin Tyler said. Its an app that will attract folks from a variety of backgrounds. Folks who are interested in virtual reality as well as folks who are interested in improving their diversity, equity and inclusion journey.

The app is called A Mile in My Shoes.

A Mile in My Shoes is a unique experience, Dr. Tyler said. Its a creative immersion experience that allows individuals to see the world through the lens of identified individuals.

Assistant Professor of Interior Design Dr. Linda Nubani helped him create it. She specializes in architecture and virtual reality. She says VR is a very impactful tool since it can model complex scenarios.

When it first launched, I believe it was very commonly used in military applications, flight simulations, and medical operations and now its been commercially available, so a lot of researchers are interested in exploring the potentials of using virtual reality in other applications, Dr. Nubani said.

So why not use VR to help somebody understand and care for a person who is completely different from them? Dr. Nubani says they were very intentional while building the app.

Research showed that if you go for a third person and youre constantly seeing your avatar, youre going to develop a sense of ownership for that avatar, Dr. Nubani said.

If you develop a sense of ownership for your avatar, she says it will be easier to uncover your unconscious biases.

Unconscious bias to me is those small things, Dr. Tyler said. Its those pattern behaviors that we have that are positive or negative that influence our perceptions, beliefs, and thoughts about individuals or groups.

We use the word unconscious, because most of the time, people arent aware theyre being biased simply because we dont know what its like to be in that persons shoes. The avatars in the app include an LGBTQ+ student, a student in a wheelchair, and a student wearing a hijab.

An additional avatar is an African American male that may experience microaggressions upon entering the facility, Dr. Tyler said. You know asking that individual, 'do they belong here,' or even just looking at the pictures on the wall that dont represent who that individual maybe.

Dr. Tyler and Dr. Nubani have created surveys to help measure changes in empathy as people go through the app. The goal isnt just to become aware of your own biases, but to learn how to behave when you witness uncomfortable situations caused by somebody else.

How do you be an advocate, or an agent of change or speak up for that individual, Dr. Tyler said.

Both say they hope to expand the app even more, adding additional avatars and expanding their reach beyond universities.

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Virtual reality app created to help uncover unconscious bias - The Denver Channel

Graphs and reports about climate change can be hard to relate to, but a stroll in the woods is not.

So to help people connect with how forests may change as the climate warms, researchers at Penn State are experimenting with virtual reality.

To ground a conversation, and then potential decision-making, in something thats graspable, thats visceral, Alex Klippel says.

Klippel and his team developed a prototype of a VR forest, modeled after a forest in northern Wisconsin.

Wearing a VR headset, users can explore the woods. They can look up at the sky, down at the sun-dappled ground, and even hear birds chirping.

We can create a visceral, embodied experience, Klippel says.

The technology incorporates detailed data about the tree and plant species in the forest, and projections of how warmer, drier conditions could affect them. For example, some species such as balsam fir and white ash may decrease in number or become stunted.

Users can zoom in to learn about each species. And they can toggle between how the forest looks today, and how it may look decades in the future.

Immersive experiences can convey something more tangible than data alone. So Klippel hopes they can get people thinking about the effects of climate change in a whole new way.

Reporting credit: Sarah Kennedy/ChavoBart Digital Media

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A virtual reality forest takes users for a walk in the woods of the future - Yale Climate Connections

V.R. is not going to be the solution, said Jonathan Rogers, a researcher at University College London who has studied rates of anxiety disorders during the pandemic. It may be part of the solution, but its not going to make medications and formal therapies obsolete.

Virtual reality treatments arent necessarily more effective than traditional prolonged exposure therapy, said Dr. Sherrill. But for some patients, V.R. offers convenience and can immerse a patient in scenes that would be hard to replicate in real life. For some people, the treatment can mimic video game systems theyre already familiar with. Theres also a dual awareness in patients who use virtual reality the images on the screen are almost lifelike, but the headset itself functions as proof that theyre not real.

Months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Dr. Difede and Dr. Hunter Hoffman, who is the director of the Virtual Reality Research Center at the University of Washington, tested virtual reality treatments in one survivor with acute PTSD, one of the first reported applications of the therapy. Dr. Difede said that the first time the patient put on the headset, she started crying. I never thought Id see the World Trade Center again, she told Dr. Difede. After six hourlong sessions, the patient experienced a 90 percent decrease in PTSD symptoms. Dr. Difede later tested V.R. exposure therapy in Iraq War veterans; 16 out of the first 20 patients no longer met the diagnostic criteria for PTSD after completing treatment.

At the University of Central Florida, a team called U.C.F. Restores has been building trauma therapies using V.R. that allows clinicians to control the level of detail in a simulation, down to the color of a bedspread or a TV that can be clicked on or off, in order to more easily trigger traumatic memories. The program offers free trauma therapy, often using V.R., to Florida residents and focuses on treating PTSD.

Dr. Deborah Beidel, a professor of psychology and executive director of U.C.F. Restores, has broadened the treatments beyond visuals, customizing sounds and even smells to create an augmented reality for patients.

Jonathan Tissue, 35, a former Marine, sought treatment at U.C.F. Restores in early 2020 after talk therapy and medication failed to alleviate his PTSD symptoms, which included flashbacks, anxiety and mood swings. In the end, it was the smells pumped into the room while he described his military service to a clinician that helped unlock his memories. There was the stench of burning tires, diesel fumes, the smell of decaying bodies. He heard the sounds of munitions firing. His chair rumbled, thanks to the centers simulated vibrations.

It unlocked certain doors that I could start speaking about, he said. He talked through his newly uncovered memories with a therapist and a support group, processing the terror that had built in his body for years.

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Virtual Reality Therapy Plunges Patients Back Into Trauma. Here Is Why Some Swear by It. - The New York Times

With the extended reality (XR) revolution already underway, its easy to envision a future in which the lines between the real world and the virtual world become even more blurred than they are today. In this article, I look at the technological advances coming our way in virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) and what these might mean for everyday life in the future.

Future Predictions Of How Virtual Reality And Augmented Reality Will Reshape Our Lives

Rapid XR advances are on the horizon

In the future, its likely well experience XR in ways we cant yet imagine. But, for now, there are plenty of imminent tech advances to look forward to. Well have faster, lighter, more affordable VR technology. And advances in smartphone technology (such as better cameras and processors) will mean we can enjoy slicker AR and VR experiences on our phones. And with 5G wireless networks, we'll be able to enjoy them wherever we are in the world.

Here are some of the key advances in XR tech that are just around the corner:

LiDAR will bring more realistic AR creations to our phones. The iPhone 12 and iPad Pro are now equipped with LiDAR technology, and its reasonable to expect other devices will follow suit in due course. LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) is essentially used to create a 3D map of surroundings, which can seriously boost a devices AR capabilities. It can provide a sense of depth to AR creations instead of them looking like a flat graphic. It also allows for occlusion, which is where any real physical object located in front of the AR object should, obviously, block the view of it for example, people's legs blocking out a Pokmon GO character on the street. This is vital for making AR creations appear more rooted in the real world and avoiding clunky AR experiences.

VR headsets will get smaller, lighter, and incorporate more features. Hand detection and eye tracking are two prominent examples of the built-in technology that will increasingly be incorporated into VR headsets. Because hand detection allows VR users to control movements without clunky controllers, users can be more expressive in VR and connect with their game or VR experience on a deeper level. And the inclusion of eye-tracking technology allows the system to focus the best resolution and image quality only on the parts of the image that the user is looking at (exactly how the human eye does). This taxes the system less, reduces lag and reduces the risk of nausea.

Well have new XR accessories to deepen the experience further. One of my favorites examples is robotic boots. Startup Ekto VR has created wearable robotic boots that provide the sensation of walking, to match your movement in the headset, even though youre actually standing still. The Ekto One robotic boots look a bit like futuristic roller skates except, instead of wheels, they have rotating discs on the bottom, which move to match the direction of the wearers movements. In future, accessories like this may be considered a normal part of the VR experience.

We'll even have full-body haptic suits. We already have things like haptic gloves, which simulate the feeling of touch through vibrations. But what about full body suits? In fact, full-body suits are already available the TESLASUIT being one example but they aren't exactly affordable for everyday VR users. They will probably become more affordable, mainstream, and effective in time, providing yet another leap forward for VR.

Merging the human body with XR technologies?

Looking beyond these external accessories and devices, we may see XR technologies begin to integrate more seamlessly with the human body. One way is through AR contact lenses. While it's true that AR glasses will get better, cheaper, and more comfortable, in the future they may also become obsolete as AR lenses take over. Such lenses are already in development; in 2020, California-based startup Mojo Vision revealed it was developing AR contact lenses with micro-LED displays that place information inside the wearers eyes.

Imagine the uses for such AR lenses. For now, Mojo says that its first priority is to help people struggling with poor vision (by providing better contrast or the ability to zoom in on objects). But the intention is the lenses will eventually be made available for everyday consumers, and could be used to project things like health tracking stats and other useful data. Indeed, when demonstrating the prototype to journalists, the lenses displayed pre-loaded information like text messages and the weather report, indicating that AR lenses could help us consume content in new ways. It could also help us enhance our sight in low light conditions (even if our vision is otherwise trouble-free), or even serve as a teleprompter for speaking events.

Eventually, AR lenses could potentially be used to augment the world around us, so we could see whatever we wanted. Lets say you hate the garish paint job your neighbors have done on the exterior of their home. In the future, your lenses could change it for you, and youll see whatever color house you choose. Or lets say you see an impressive building and want to know who designed it and when it was built. Your lenses could overlay the information directly in front of your eyes. All of which would further blur the boundaries between the real world and the virtual one.

Keeping the benefits of XR in mind

It would be easy to paint all this with a dystopian flair a slippery slope that starts with playing Pokmon GO and ends up with humans permanently wired up to a virtual world. But I feel hugely positive about the future of XR. At the end of the day, XR is about turning information into experiences, and this can make so many aspects of our lives richer and more fulfilling.

Yes, there are pitfalls to overcome (individual privacy, ethics, and so on). Yet, the potential benefits of XR far outweigh the challenges. Certainly for businesses, XR offers huge scope to drive business success, whether that means engaging more deeply with customers, creating immersive training solutions, streamlining business processes such as manufacturing and maintenance, or generally offering customers innovative solutions to their problems.

Read more about extended reality technologies in my new book, Extended Reality in Practice: 100+ Amazing Ways Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality Are Changing Business and Society. Its packed with real-world examples from sectors such as retail, manufacturing, education, travel and hospitality, law enforcement, and more.

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Future Predictions Of How Virtual Reality And Augmented Reality Will Reshape Our Lives - Forbes

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When immersed in an exciting video game, enthusiastic gamers may easily lose track of time. As virtual reality gameswhere players are transported through their headsets into new computerized worldsrise in popularity, this may be especially true. Now, researchers at UCSC have found that virtual reality indeed warps users perception of time, and that they are more likely to underestimate the amount of time spent playing a game than those in front of a 2-D screen.

Virtual reality is a blossoming technology with a wide range of applications. Recently, Good Times covered how researchers are using virtual reality technology to communicate the dangers of sea level rise to Santa Cruz residents. Virtual reality games can also be used for physical therapy or education on social and political issues. And local virtual reality companies like Impact Creative are helping major companies like Google, as well as nonprofits such as Rising International, provide immersive, engaging content.

By making users feel as if they are in a different environment than they actually are, virtual reality can be a mind-boggling experience. However, the psychological consequences of entering this new space are not well researched yet.

This is the first time that theres been experimental evidence that virtual reality manipulates time perception, says Grayson Mullen, an undergraduate at UCSC at the time of the research and lead author of the study.

Mullen came up with the idea while playing a virtual reality game himself and realizing he didnt know how much time had passed. Wanting to investigate this experience scientifically, he designed and coded a game that could be played by participants both in virtual reality and on a conventional monitor. For the experiment, he recruited 41 UCSC students to play the game in both formats and asked them to stop when they believed five minutes had passed.

The study found that participants who played the virtual reality version of the game first played for significantly more time than those who started in front of a regular computer screen. On average, they played for 72.6 seconds longer, or 28.5% more time. Mullen published his results in Timing & Time Perception on May 3.

VR is introducing this new thing called presence, or the feeling that youre in a different environment than you actually are, and this was never really possible before, says Nicolas Davidenko, associate professor of psychology at UCSC and senior author of the study. Compression of time perception is just one of many facets of what could happen.

Research shows that gaming addiction in general can have serious consequences, such as negatively impacting mood or sleep schedules. Mullens study shows that virtual reality game developers may need to be extra careful and include ways to remind gamers about how much time is passing.

However, the compression of time perception also has positive implications. Virtual reality can be used as a distraction during medical treatments like chemotherapy, for example, to make the duration feel shorter.

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UCSC study reveals that virtual reality can alter time perception - Good Times Weekly

The ever-growing use of virtual reality (VR) technologies has expanded the potential for companies across several industries. Companies previously limited to a specific niche can now expand into new business lines thanks to the developments being made.

While VR will likely foster growth in numerous tech stocks, investors looking to benefit from the VR trend could find lucrative opportunities in Facebook (NASDAQ:FB), Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM), and Unity Software (NYSE:U). Let's find out a bit more about what makes these great virtual reality stocks in June.

About 44% of the world's population uses some app on the Facebook platform every month. This calls into question where the company can find future growth. Facebook management hopes virtual reality will provide part of the answer. Facebook bought Oculus in 2014 and began investing in its potential, but it is only now emerging as the company's fastest growth driver.

Image source: Getty Images.

In the first-quarter 2021 earnings call, CEO Mark Zuckerberg described VR as an "important part" of how the general public will interact with computers in the future. He also mentioned that the Oculus Quest 2 headset has exceeded expectations following the holiday season. Moreover, he added that the most used augmented reality (AR) apps are focused on social, validating the company's theory that the Facebook site's synergies with Oculus will drive growth in this niche.

For the first quarter of 2021, Facebook's "other revenue" business segment, which primarily refers to Oculus, saw revenue surge 146% year over year to $732 million. This makes up only a tiny fraction of the $26.2 billion in quarterly revenue.Still, it represents a significant improvement from the 72% growth rate in 2020 and the 26% increase for this segment in 2019.

Like its revenue, Facebook's stock price continues to climb -- it rose by 48% over the last 12 months. Quarterly net income of $9.5 billion increased 94% as the growth in operating expenses lagged the revenue increase. This allowed Facebook's price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio to fall slightly over the last year to 28. Considering the growth in Oculus and the overall gains, Facebook looks like a relatively low-cost option for investing in VR.

FB data by YCharts

Investors know Qualcomm primarily for smartphone chipsets. However, the company has also developed a chip for what it calls Extended Reality (XR), which incorporates mixed reality (MR) with VR and AR into the SnapDragon XR2 platform. It partners with companies such as Verizon andiQiyi, and its SnapDragon XR2 appears in Facebook's Oculus Quest 2 goggles. This key alliance provides a competitive advantage to both companies as it drives both Qualcomm's presence in the VR space and Facebook's massive growth in this segment.

Qualcomm does not break down revenue specifically for its XR chips. However, Qualcomm Technology Licensing (QTL), the division that markets that chip, grew its revenue by 52% year over year in the latest quarter, making up about $1.6 billion of the company's $7.9 billion in quarterly revenue. This came in roughly in proportion to overall revenue growth.

Thanks to 5G upgrades, Qualcomm also increased its revenue by 67% during the first two quarters of the current fiscal year compared with the first six months of fiscal 2020. This allowed net income to grow by 203% over that period due to much smaller increases in operating expenses.

Although Qualcomm's stock price surged by just over 65% over the last 12 months, profit increases have kept the valuation in check. Qualcomm stock now sells for about 19 times earnings, a 20% reduction from year-ago levels. While 5G should continue to perpetuate profit increases, its virtual reality offerings could enhance that impressive growth.

QCOM data by YCharts

Many consumers may not know Unity Software. However, it provides a real-time development platform for gaming on the Windows, macOS, and Linux platforms.

Now, the company has created a set of development tools geared toward virtual reality. In the Q1 2021 earnings call, CEO John Riccitiello described the transition from linear 2D to real-time 3D as a "transformative theme" that will change how creators recreate and tell their stories. Virtual reality will likely become a critical component in this transformation. Its software, initially geared for gaming, has now developed applications for industries as diverse as real estate, healthcare, and energy.

Unity also remains popular with developers. When Loup Ventures surveyed Unity developers in 2020, it found that 96% of developers will either maintain or increase their subscriptions to Unity. Roughly 63% also cited ease of use as their main reason for loyalty to the platform.

This loyalty likely played a factor in the 41% year-over-year revenue increase in the latest quarter to $235 million. However, with a near doubling of research and development expenses, its quarterly loss rose to $108 million.

Still, its proportion of customers who spend over $100,000 grew by 25%. With full-year 2021 revenue expected to rise by approximately 30% from 2020 levels, the increases also appear poised to continue.

U data by YCharts

Despite a massive correction, the stock price has still risen by nearly 40% over the last 12 months. It pulled back as the price-to-sales (P/S) ratio moved north of 50, and revenue growth fell short of expectations. Still, with the P/S ratio now at 26 and a growing base of applications, investors might begin to consider Unity stock a buy.

This article represents the opinion of the writer, who may disagree with the official recommendation position of a Motley Fool premium advisory service. Were motley! Questioning an investing thesis -- even one of our own -- helps us all think critically about investing and make decisions that help us become smarter, happier, and richer.

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3 Virtual Reality Stocks to Buy in June - The Motley Fool

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The market is fragmented, and the degree of fragmentation will accelerate during the forecast period. Alphabet Inc., Facebook Inc., HP Inc., HTC Corp., Magic Leap Inc., Microsoft Corp., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Snap Inc., Sony Corp., and Toshiba Corp. are some of the major market participants. Factors such as the increasing demand for AR and VR technology, the product launches, and the increasing number of M&A activities will offer immense growth opportunities. To leverage the current opportunities, market vendors must strengthen their foothold in the fast-growing segments, while maintaining their positions in the slow-growing segments.

Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) Market 2021-2025: Segmentation

Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) Market is segmented as below:

To learn more about the global trends impacting the future of market research, download a free sample: https://www.technavio.com/talk-to-us?report=IRTNTR43509

Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) Market 2021-2025: Vendor Analysis and Scope

To help businesses improve their market position, the augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) market provides a detailed analysis of around 25 vendors operating in the market. Some of these vendors include Alphabet Inc., Facebook Inc., HP Inc., HTC Corp., Magic Leap Inc., Microsoft Corp., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Snap Inc., Sony Corp., and Toshiba Corp.

The report also covers the following areas:

The increasing number of M&A activities is likely to emerge as one of the primary drivers of the market. However, factors such as the high development costs associated with AR and VR apps may threaten the growth of the market.

Backed with competitive intelligence and benchmarking, our research reports on the augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) markets are designed to provide entry support, customer profile & M&As as well as go-to-market strategy support.

Global Artificial Intelligence Platforms Market- The artificial intelligence platforms market is segmented by deployment (on-premise and cloud-based) and geography (North America, APAC, Europe, South America, and MEA).

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Global Infrared Imaging Software Market- The infrared imaging software market is segmented by end-user (government sector and commercial sector), application (surveillance, security, automation maintenance, automotive, and others), and geography (North America, Europe, APAC, South America, and MEA).

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Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) Market 2021-2025: Key Highlights

Table of Contents:

Executive Summary

Market Landscape

Market Sizing

Five Forces Analysis

Market Segmentation by Technology

Customer landscape

Geographic Landscape

Vendor Landscape

Vendor Analysis

Appendix

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Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focus on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

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Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) Market to grow by USD 162.71 Billion|Key Drivers and Market Forecasts|17000+ Technavio Research...

Shaun Patel, co-founder and CEO, REACT Neuro

Virtual reality has provided senior care residents with a lifeline to the outside world during the isolation caused by the pandemic. But now, virtual reality is helping seniors in other ways in fact, its being used to analyze brain health.

Pico Interactive, a global technology company, develops virtual reality solutions. When REACT Neuro, a virtual reality company that uses AI and digital exams to measure brain health, needed technology for its exams, the company turned to Picos Neo 2 Eye headset. The headset features Tobii Eye Tracking with advanced capabilities, allowing REACT Neuro to analyze brain health.

How REACT Neuro Is Evaluating Senior Brain Health

The technology has already been tested in multiple fields, including physical therapy. Now, REACT Neuro is performing digital exams to help evaluate and support brain health.

Shaun Patel, co-founder and CEO of REACT Neuro, explains that these digital exams offer multiple benefits. Each exam takes between three and five minutes to administer. The exams measure changes in eye movement and voice, over time, to inform brain health, Patel explains. Each exam measures various domains of the brain, like working memory, as well as specific metrics from each exam, such as speed and accuracy. Residents can see their results on a tablet after completing an exam.

While other neurological assessments require access to highly trained specialists, are time-consuming and expensive, and can be subjective in nature, REACT Neuro has taken a different approach. Weve reimagined these exams in a digital format building on scientific first principles and leveraging the power of machine learning to democratize access to simple, fast, and scalable data to empower people to engage proactively with their brain health, says Patel.

The result is a test that offers multiple benefits to the senior living industry. The industry is shifting from a hospitality focused business to a health driven enterprise. Seniors are demanding products that will help them extend their health and quality of life. REACT offers operators the ability to objectively quantify brain health with much greater efficiency than the current standard of care, explains Patel.

This not only gives them insight and provides transparency to all stakeholders in a residents brain health but can also help understand how various engagement programs have an effect on health. In addition, we see REACT as a way for operators to engage with the broader community, including seniors who want to age in place at home.

The REACT Neuro Evaluations So Far

In January of 2021, Asbury Methodist Village, a senior living community in Gaithersburg, Maryland, began using REACT Neuro. Sue Paul, Director of Wellness at Asbury Methodist Village, says,Asbury Methodist Village had invested in brain health through several other programs in recent years, and there is a very strong interest among the residents here, so being the test site was a natural fit. One resident in particular was very interested in the tools ability for early detection of changes in brain function and provided philanthropic support to bring the tool here, explains Paul.

Paul notes that Asbury Methodist Village currently has a cohort of 28 people participating in the evaluations. Those residents are scheduled for 15-minute appointments each week, and they complete one to two assessments during each appointment. The facility is training some people to do their testing on their own time with the tablet and VR headset.

Testing consists of several standardized cognitive and VOR assessments group into test batteries.There are also some VR experiences (beach, mountains, Paris) for the residents to enjoy as well as meditation and breathing exercises, says Paul. The goal is to create personalized treatment plans, including physical exercise and cognitive training, to promote brain health.

Residents are definitely improving as theyve learned how to use the technology and what to expect from the VR experience, Paul notes.They are more efficient and process instructions faster than the initial few weeks.We dont have any hard data yet on cognitive improvement.

The overall response to the technology has been overwhelmingly positive, too. The wellness staff and our communitys executive director are thrilled to be on the ground floor of such an exciting technology, says Paul. The REACT Neuro team was great with training, and now that we are becoming more proficient with the technology and processes, we are even more excited. It is really incredible to think that we are playing a role in something that has the potential to help millions of people.

Facility residents were also eager to help. Asbury Methodist Village is located in the metro-DC region, and we have a highly educated and highly engaged resident population, explains Paul. We very quickly got a group of volunteers, including quite a few people with research and science backgrounds, who are excited to be providing the data that is essentially building this tools benchmarking capabilities. So, beyond their excitement and interest in the tool, they understand the value of their participation.

The evaluations being done at Asbury Methodist Village could be the first steps in a new and exciting use of technology to better measure and support brain health. By eliminating the need for highly trained experts and the subjectivity that often comes with neurological tests, this VR technology would make these evaluations much more accessible for senior care facilities across the country.

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The Future to Evaluating Brain Health Could Lie in Virtual Reality - i Advance Senior Care

A study published in the Journal of Sex Research found that when men watched pornography through virtual reality (VR) technology, they felt more desired, more flirted with, and more connected to the actresses, compared to when they watched pornography through a 2D video. They also felt a stronger urge to interact with the actresses and perceived them to be more intelligent.

Study authors Arne Dekker and his team were motivated to conduct their study given the lack of current research on the effects of VR pornography. While it stands to reason that VR pornography should offer a more immersive, connected experience with the actors when compared to 2D pornography, sex researchers have yet to demonstrate this effect.

Dekker and colleagues designed an experimental study to test this effect among a sample of 50 heterosexual men between the ages of 18 and 60. The researchers obtained two different pornography films that could be experienced in either VR or on a flat screen. Both films depicted a man having sex with two women, shown from the male perspective. On two different days, each subject was randomly assigned to watch two of the films one in VR and one on a flat screen.

All subjects rated their sexual arousal during and right after each film. They also responded to a series of items concerning their emotional experiences as a viewer and their perceptions of the actresses.

The findings suggested that the VR pornography offered a more intimate experience compared to the 2D pornography, in a number of ways. For example, the men reported greater sexual arousal, greater bodily arousal, and greater sexual desire for the actresses when they watched the pornography films in VR than when they watched them on the flat screen.

Unsurprisingly, it appeared that these differences may have had to do with the immersiveness of the VR, which allowed for a stronger first-person experience. During the VR films, men said they felt more like they were the male actor, more like they were an agent rather than an observer, and more like they had had sex with the actresses. Men also felt more flirted with by the actresses in the VR films and more desired by them. Finally, they reported feeling more eye contact during the VR films, feeling more connected with the actresses, feeling a greater urge to interact with them, and attributed a higher IQ score to the actresses.

The authors note that the intimate experience afforded by the virtual reality scenes brings to mind a psychological relationship called parasocial interaction (PSI). PSI, a term coined by Horton and Wohl in 1956, describes how consumers develop relationships with media actors, perceiving a closeness to the actors despite the one-sidedness of the relationship. In this way, viewers become active consumers of media rather than passive recipients.

Dekker and his team say that it remains uncertain whether the pronounced intimacy of virtual reality pornography may be harmful to viewers, noting that future studies will be needed to explore the potential risks of habitual use. On the positive side of things, they suggest that there may be a clinical use for VR pornography, perhaps in the treatment of sexual problems.

The study, VR Porn as Empathy Machine? Perception of Self and Others in Virtual Reality Pornography, was authored by Arne Dekker, Frederike Wenzlaff, Sarah V. Biedermann, Peer Briken, and Johannes Fuss.

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Virtual reality pornography heightens feelings of intimacy and attributions of intelligence - PsyPost

Its no secret that Berkeleys Bancroft Library houses a trove of ancient Egyptian papyri. But how did it end up there? The answer lies in reptilecarcasses.

It seems the ancient Egyptian priests had a problem: their mummified crocodiles, intended as offerings to the croc god Sobek, would not keep their shape. So they stuffed them with scraps of used papyri, the ancient precursor to our paper.

Centuries later, in 1899, a team of archaeologists, funded by Berkeley benefactor Phoebe A. Hearst, stumbled across these papyri-stuffed, mummified crocs while on a dig in Umm el-Baragat, Egypt, site of the ancient city of Tebtunis. When the researchers discovered the scraps of letters, bills, and other banal records, they realized they had hit on something big: a paper trail into everyday life in Tebtunis, including such humdrum artifacts as tax documents, contracts, petitions, and complaints. In one example, an ancient villager wrote to a village official petitioning for help after an attack was made upon my dwelling byArsinoe.

As Andrew Hogan, postdoctoral fellow at the Bancrofts Center for the Tebtunis Papyri, told Berkeley News, working with these papyri texts allows researchers to [peel] away below the 1 percent. So, youre getting to the vast majority of the lived experience for most people in the ancientworld.

While Hogan focuses on the quotidian history of ancient Egypt, Professor Rita Lucarelli, faculty curator of Egyptology at the Hearst Museum of Anthropology, is working on a virtual reality museum experience. Aptly named Return to the Tomb, the headset-enabled tour transports viewers into the realm of the ancient dead. Lucarelli said the VR exhibit allows viewers to have the experience of entering a tomb, walking around a coffin, and interacting with these beautiful funerary texts andimages.

The project stems from a push to digitize museum artifacts from around the world in hopes that one day they may be returned to the tombs, villages, and towns from which they weretaken.

Project coordinator Chris Hoffman told Berkeley News, Were doing something quite groundbreaking, in terms of building an immersive virtual reality experience that is authentic, in using scholarly content and making it available to many more people while preservingartifacts.

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Croc Mummies, Ancient Papyri, and Virtual Reality Tombs: Oh My! - CALIFORNIA