What is Virtual Reality
There are currently many different definitions of Virtual Reality.
In this report the following, very simple, definition of Virtual
Reality will be used: Virtual Reality is a computer generated world
with which the user can interact. The interaction can vary from
simply looking around to interactively modifying the world.
Graphics Visualization & Usability Center
The Graphics Visualization & Usability Center at the Georgia
Institute of Technology, Atlanta, has a vision of a world in which
individuals are empowered in their everyday pursuits by the use of
computers. A world where computers are used as easily and
effectively as cars, stereos and telephones. To do this, the center
has experts in the field of computer technology, experts in the
field of "people technology" of the mind and eyes and motor channels
and experts in applications, all working together
[badre 91].
The GVU was officially started in October 1992 and already has an established name in the field of Human Computer Interaction. This can be explained by both the vision of the GVU and the well known name of the director, James Foley. One of the different groups working in the GVU is the Virtual Environments group led by Larry Hodges.
The Virtual Environments group started when the first Virtual Reality equipment was delivered in October 1992. Soon the first demonstrations could be shown and it became apparent that this was a new success for the Graphics Visualization and Usability Center. The VE group quickly grew to what it is now, a multidisciplinary group with people working on audio and visual feedback, people from different departments, even people from different universities working together.
Presence and Virtual Reality
As stated before, some research has already been done to find out more
about presence. Both Larry Hodges and I had the feeling, however, that
still a lot is unknown about presence and VR. For instance, it is
unknown how to measure presence. This feeling that there was something
missing led to the following research question:
Identify and explore issues related to the VR concept usually
referred to as presence.
To answer this research question an experiment will be proposed to
treat people suffering from acrophobia, fear of heights. This report
will explain why acrophobia was chosen and how we plan to treat it.
This led to the second research question.
Examine the efficacy of a treatment for a phobia by using Virtual
Reality.
This experiment is not only interesting to computer scientists. The psychologists can test whether or not it is possible to treat people by using VR. If it turns out that it is possible to treat people, it would mean a big improvement in treatment possibilities. With this technique, it is possible to give each person a specialized treatment, and the psychologist no longer needs to leave his office, saving both time and money.
Following chapters
Chapter 2 will give a brief history of
Virtual Reality. It will describe the equipment used in Virtual
Reality and the equipment that was available at the GVU center. The
final section will give a very brief introduction to the Simple
Virtual Environments toolkit.
Chapter 3 will give an overview of the research that has been done in presence. This previous research left us with five questions that were still unanswered. These five questions are sub questions to the first research question. To answer these questions an experiment was proposed to treat people suffering from a phobia.
Chapter 4 gives an overview of the different classes of phobias. One phobia from a specific class of phobias was chosen to be used in the experiment.
Chapter 5 describes the different treatments that exist based on the behavioral theory. One of these treatments was chosen to treat the phobia selected in the previous chapter. After selecting a treatment a method was selected to build the environments needed for the treatment. At the end a list of requirements for the software will be given.
Chapter 6 will describe the steps taken when one of the environments was built and tested. The lessons learned from this first environment were used to build the other environments. At the end an overview will be given of the different environments built.
Chapter 7 explains the two experiments that will be done using the environments from the previous chapter. First the setup of the experiments will be given and then the results of the experiments. At the end of the chapter five assertions about presence will be given that were deduced from the experiments.
Chapter 8 will give the conclusions to the two research questions formulated in this introduction. Besides this, an overview will be given of the modifications to the Simple Virtual Environments toolkit, necessary to be able to build the environments for the experiment. At the end a list of future research will be given
After this an overview of the literature used will be given and appendixes with the forms the subjects had to fill in during the experiments and the papers written about this research.
Rob Kooper |
kooper@cc.gatech.edu
|