Creating New Senses Through Alternate Reality
by Brad Bush
We’re standing at the edge of the impending boom of alternate reality technology (both virtual and augmented). As hardware and software continue to mature, technologists ponder the many potential use cases — beyond gaming to more practical, everyday scenarios.
One of the most promising categories for alternate reality use cases is the ability to bring real facts into augmented and virtual realities. What if you could walk through a nuclear plant and see computer-generated images of radiation within the environment in real time? This is the kind of alternate reality use case that is already taking shape.
Overlaying data in this way is a first order of magnitude effect of alternate reality technology — but what about second order of magnitude effects?
Beyond overlaying data in the real world, alternate reality technology has the potential to create new human senses and emotions, taking advantage of brain plasticity in ways we never would have thought of ten years ago.
Brain Plasticity Presents a Prime Alternate Reality Opportunity
It wasn’t long ago that the prevalent belief was that human brain power was fixed. However, the idea of brain plasticity — that the human brain is pliable and can be shaped by external environments — has emerged over the last 5 or 6 years.
Researchers are considering how brain plasticity can be leveraged to relieve the effects of psychiatric and neuro disorders such as Alzheimer’s, depression, Parkinson’s, and more. Alternate reality is already being used to improve this research.
In a recent study, researchers at the Center for BrainHealth in Dallas used virtual reality training programs to mitigate feelings of anxiousness in children and teens with Autism Spectrum Disorder. According to Nyaz Didehbani, Ph.D., a Center for BrainHealth research clinician, “the virtual reality training platform creates a safe place for participants to practice social situations without the intense fear of consequence.
But the potential for alternate reality in brain plasticity goes even beyond human health. Using these kinds of programs, researchers have found that we can potentially teach people to be more empathetic.
The Virtual Human Interaction Lab at Stanford University has been conducting these empathy studies for years. With approximately 1,000 volunteers, the researchers hope to use alternate reality to simulate empathy scenarios that can alter human responses to bullying, prejudice, classroom learning, and more.
It’s one thing to consider empathy in its typical third-person terms — the “walking a mile in someone else’s shoes” scenario. However, it’s another thing to experience these simulations from a first-person perspective.
As virtual reality pioneer Mark Bolas has said, “in virtual reality, it’s not that you have empathy, it’s that you are actually having the emotions.” This is the kind of second order of magnitude effect that alternate reality can have — teaching humans to have new emotions and senses in the long-term, not just when they are wearing a headset or goggles.
Creating New Senses with Alternate Reality — A “2 + 2 = 5” Situation
Researchers are already proving that humans are capable of achieving the seemingly-impossible “sixth sense.” For example, FeelSpace developed a vibrating belt that would tell users which direction was North. After a few weeks of wearing the belt, participants in the study found that they could actually sense North even when they were no longer wearing it.
Have you ever felt your phone vibrate in your pocket only to reach down and find no phone is actually in your pocket? This is the same thing — we can grow so accustomed to a feeling that it essentially becomes a new sense. Combining Internet of Things (IoT) data with alternate reality will magnify this context of brain plasticity.
We can already imagine a number of first order of magnitude effects of alternate reality:
- What if you had a real-time Zillow or Trulio overlaying data on houses as you moved by them, so you could see pricing and interior pictures as you browsed for a new home?
- What if your electrician could see live wires even through walls to ease potentially dangerous projects?
- What if you could try clothes on in virtual reality and see yourself in a virtual mirror rather than trying every item on in the store?
These are the direct “2 + 2 = 4” implications of alternate reality, similar to when we imagined the benefits of internet linking for business. Just as no one expected the second order of magnitude effects of Amazon on brick-and-mortar stores, it’s hard to predict the indirect “2 + 2 = 5” implications alternate reality will have on our daily lives, our personalities, our emotions, and even our senses.
We’re in the 1995 of alternate reality. We are only seeing what our eyes see right now — but what will we see in the future when we enhance our senses with alternate reality?
Still aren’t sure how VR/AR apply to your business? Download our free ebook, 11 Tasty VR/AR Recipes, for a deeper look at some of the top business use cases for the technology.
At Dialexa we start by asking “Do you know what your business will look like tomorrow?” Whether you have a plan, a problem or no idea, connect with us to explore the right answers for you.
