Background: Parkinson’s disease is a neurodegenerative disease in which the progressive loss of dopaminergic neurons leads to initially sporadic and eventually widespread damage of the nervous system resulting in significant musculoskeletal and cognitive deterioration. Loss of motor function alongside increasing cognitive impairment is part of the natural disease progression. Gait is often considered an automatic activity; however, walking is the result of a delicate balance of multiple systems which maintain the body’s center of mass over an ever-changing base of support. (...) It is a complex motor behavior that requires components of attention and memory to prevent falls and injury. In addition, evidence points to the critical role of salient visual information to gait adaptability. There is a growing understanding that treatment for PD needs to address movement as it occurs naturally and walking needs to be practiced in more complex environments than traditional therapy has provided.MethodsIn this single-blinded randomized-controlled pilot study, an immersive treadmill training was piloted to determine feasibility and preliminary efficacy on gait and cognition in people with PD. Eighteen participants with Hoehn and Yahr stages I-III PD were randomized to either an intervention or a waitlist control group. Following baseline data collection, the intervention group trained for 30 min, three times/week for 4 weeks on a split belt treadmill combined with a first-person immersive video game targeting visuospatial skills and working memory. Assessment was repeated after 4 weeks of training for the experimental group and 1-month after baseline for the control group. Primary motor outcomes were captured with the APDM Opal sensors during 6 MWT, TUG, and TUG Cognitive. Secondary outcomes of cognition were measured with the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, Verbal Fluency and the Symbol Digit Modality Test. Within subject differences were calculated using the Wilcoxon Signed Ranked Test and between subject comparisons were analyzed using the Mann Whitney U-test.ResultsThis novel treadmill training program was well-tolerated with all participants in the intervention group completing 4 weeks of training three times a week without any adverse effects. After immersive cognitive motor training, the experimental group made clinically relevant improvements in gait speed and walking distance during the 6 MWT while members of the control group showed no change or decreased gait speed and walking distance over the 1-month trial. In addition, the experimental group demonstrated significant improvement for the TUG Cognitive and those changes were greater than the control group. The experimental group also improved scores on MoCA and SDMT cognitive outcome measures while the control group did not.ConclusionThe use of immersive gaming technology to engage specific areas of cognition related to gait is feasible in PD. The treadmill training program paired with a customized interactive video game improved walking velocity in addition to non-significant but consistent improvements in other gait measures and cognitive performance in participants with early to mid-stage PD. (shrink)

Mathematics is an important foundation for the development of science education. In the past, when instructors taught mathematical concepts of geometry shapes, they usually used traditional textbooks and aids to conduct teaching activities, which resulted in students not being able to understand the principles completely. Nowadays, it has become a trend to integrate emerging technologies into mathematics courses and to use digital instructional aids. Emerging technologies can effectively enhance students’ sensory experience while strengthening their impressions and understandings of subject concepts. (...) In this paper, we apply virtual reality immersive technologies to develop a “virtual reality immersive learning mathematics geometry system,” which is used to teach mathematical geometry concepts. Teachers use the system to develop three basic mathematical geometry learning materials: “Triangular pyramid volume = 1/3 prism volume,” “Cone volume calculation,” and “Triangle center of gravity derivation.” In the experimental activity, the teacher uses virtual reality teaching aids to guide students to learn mathematical geometry concepts in a fun way so that they can achieve the effectiveness of immersive learning. This study explores the impact of using the virtual reality immersive learning mathematics geometry system on students’ technology acceptance, learning motivations, and learning performance. The experimental result showed that using the virtual reality immersive learning mathematics geometry system can improve the learning motivation and learning performance of students. The findings indicated that the experimental group had better learning outcomes after completing the learning tasks of three geometric units. The experimental group used the virtual reality immersive learning mathematics geometry system which can lead to better learning outcomes. According to the ARCS questionnaire, students in the experimental group were confident to understand new subjects. At the same time, the mode of completing the game can effectively give students a sense of accomplishment. The use of emerging technologies in the classroom can be an attractive learning mode for students. (shrink)

Practices such as mindfulness, introspection, and self-reflection are known to have positive short and long-term effects on health and well-being. However, in today’s modern, fast-paced, technological world tempted by distractions these practices are often hard to access and relate to a broader audience. Consequently, technologies have emerged that mediate personal experiences, which is reflected in the high number of available applications designed to elicit positive changes. These technologies elicit positive changes by bringing users’ attention to the self – from technologies (...) that show representation of quantified personal data, to technologies that provide experiences that guide the user closer in understanding the self. However, while many designs available today are either built to support or are informed by these aforementioned practices, the question remains: how can we most effectively employ different design elements and interaction strategies to support positive change? Moreover, what types of input and output modalities contribute to eliciting positive states? To address these questions, we present here a state of the art scoping review of immersive interactive technologies that serve in a role of a mediator for positive change in users. We performed a literature search using ACM Digital Library, Web of Science, IEEE Xplore, and Design and Applied Arts Index (beginning of literature – January 1, 2018). We retrieved English-language articles for review, and we searched for published and unpublished studies. Risk of bias was assessed with Downs and Black 26-item QAT scale. We included 34 articles as relevant to the literature, and the analysis of the articles resulted in 38 instances of 33 immersive, interactive experiences relating to positive human functioning. Our contribution is threefold: First we provide a scoping review of immersive interactive technologies for positive change; Second, we propose both a framework for future designs of positive interactive technologies and design consideration informed by the comparative analysis of the designs; Third, we provide design considerations for immersive, interactive technologies to elicit positive states and support positive change. (shrink)

What drives and moves an individual towards certain goals and activities is a familiar question for scholars dealing with motivation in the context of schooling or work practices. However, non-school contexts such as Internet-enabled volunteer-based technical DIY communities are also important to understand since a growing part of everyday social life is spent on the Internet. This article offers the analytical concept of 'motivation path' for understanding changing and dilemmatic motives in innovative pellet DIY development. It also introduces the concept (...) of 'innovative DIY' to show the blurring of the boundaries between profession/hobby and and past work life/retirement of technically competent, innovative people. The findings indicate that Internet-enabled making can be an important medium for continued personal growth, competence development, and reflection. The findings could also help us understand how motivations may be carried over from professional work to private DIY work. (shrink)

Much of the excitement about virtual reality and its potential for things like entertainment, art, education, and activism is its ability to generate experiences that are powerfully immersive. However, discussions of VR tend to invoke the notion of immersive experience without subjecting it to closer scrutiny; and discussions often take it for granted that immersive experience is a single unified phenomenon. Against this, we argue that there are four distinct types or aspects of immersive experience that (...) should be distinguished: representational immersion, which corresponds roughly to what is sometimes called “psychological presence”; participatory immersion, which is related to the interactive aspects of VR experience; affective immersion, which has to do with the subject’s emotional relation to the experience; and narrative immersion, which captures the phenomenon of being caught up in the flow of events experienced. We argue that this four-way distinction helps us understand the powerfully immersive character of VR, while also recognizing its continuity with the immersion we experience with media such as novels, films, and music. We also argue that the account of immersion we offer here lets us better understand the connection between VR and empathy, charting a middle course between extreme enthusiasts who view VR as the ultimate “empathy machine” and extreme skeptics who argue that this attitude is misguided. (shrink)

This study investigates how Human Factors is applied when designing and developing Immersive Visual Technologies, including Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality, and Virtual Reality. We interviewed fourteen people working at different organizations, that develop IVT applications in the Nordic region. We used thematic analysis to derive themes from the interviews. The results showed an insufficient knowledge and application of HF in IVT development, due to the lack of awareness of both scope and significance of HF, resource allocation strategy, market inertia, (...) stakeholder's involvement, standardization of HF application and IVT uses, and technology maturity. This situation could be improved by allocating experts, adjusting organizational strategy to balance resource allocation, training developers and user organizations to raise awareness and to encourage co-creative design and knowledge sharing, create a sense of ownership amongst stakeholders, and ensure the usefulness of the technology to the user's work. (shrink)

The subject of this research is the immersive artistic environments that exist in the modern cultural space. Immersive technologies are used today in educational processes, historical reconstruction, various forms of socialization, in visual arts; immersion is implemented as a special scientific approach in anthropological, ethnographic, art history studies. Interactivity and immersiveness are considered here as complex predictable processes whose algorithms are embedded in the very basis of an artistic work or cultural environment. They make it possible to intensify (...) the entire spectrum of sensory-emotional perception, creating not only a new type of artwork, but also a new type of recipient immersed in the process of unfolding an artistic plot. The classification of functions of immersive spaces is proposed in the study. On the example of Russian and foreign art projects, the essential signs and features of immersive art are analyzed and identified. Immersive projects implemented in recent years are considered on the example of the cultural field of the north-west of Russia, as well as a comparative analysis of foreign and domestic events is carried out. The study concluded that immersive environments have both positive and negative potential: a complex effect on human feelings using special technological techniques that affect perception can lead to both the effect of complete immersion and catharsis, and to destructive hyperstimulation of the psyche. And the artistic immersions themselves are more a form of media communication than finished works. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the characteristics of immersive media technology and the advantages, problems and solutions in applying this technology to improve the teaching effectiveness of ideological and political theory courses in colleges and universities. Firstly, it introduces the current development and characteristics of immersive media technology. Secondly, it analyzed the outstanding advantages of immersive media technology in teaching from the following perspectives: virtual reality and augmented reality; sensory stimulation and emotional experience; and (...) human-computer interaction and self-harmony. Thirdly, it puts forward the ways to improve the teaching effectiveness based on immersive media technology from the aspects of theoretical study, history study, and practical study of ideological and political theory courses in colleges and universities. Finally, it discusses the problems in applying immersive media technology to teaching the above courses and puts forward some solutions. (shrink)

In this essay, some theoretical semiotic issues concerning immersive technologies are presented and discussed. In particular, the somatic and corporeal dimensions of the construction of the user-visual hybrid, the problematic of point of view and realism, and the narrativity inscribed in immersive technologies will be discussed. The objective is twofold: tracing the semiotic perspective on the real/virtual relationship and questioning certain rhetoric of immersivity that underlies precise ideologies circulating in the contemporary imagery.

Marshall McLuhan once proposed the concept of “global village,” believing that with the help of electronic media, Earth has become indistinguishable from a community, and there is only one Earth for human beings and one world for all countries. Today, with the continuous development of media technology, the concept of a human destiny community has also gained the general consensus of people around the world. The global value of the human destiny community encompasses the interdependent concept of international power, (...) the concept of common interests, the concept of sustainable development, and the concept of global governance. In particular, the concepts of sustainable development and global governance have been advocated by the public, which in turn has led to extensive public discussions on Socioscientific Issues, in which the teaching of SSI is gradually considered by the international science education community as one of the important goals of science education. The current issues and challenges facing SSI teaching and how immersive media technologies can facilitate SSI teaching have become important issues of keen public interest. (shrink)

GoalThis paper presents an immersive Virtual Reality system to analyze and train Executive Functions of soccer players. EFs are important cognitive functions for athletes. They are a relevant quality that distinguishes amateurs from professionals.MethodThe system is based on immersive technology, hence, the user interacts naturally and experiences a training session in a virtual world. The proposed system has a modular design supporting the extension of various so-called game modes. Game modes combine selected game mechanics with specific simulation (...) content to target particular training aspects. The system architecture decouples selection/parameterization and analysis of training sessions via a coaching app from an Unity3D-based VR simulation core. Monitoring of user performance and progress is recorded by a database that sends the necessary feedback to the coaching app for analysis.ResultsThe system is tested for VR-critical performance criteria to reveal the usefulness of a new interaction paradigm in the cognitive training and analysis of EFs. Subjective ratings for overall usability show that the design as VR application enhances the user experience compared to a traditional desktop app; whereas the new, unfamiliar interaction paradigm does not negatively impact the effort for using the application.ConclusionThe system can provide immersive training of EF in a fully virtual environment, eliminating potential distraction. It further provides an easy-to-use analyzes tool to compare user but also an automatic, adaptive training mode. (shrink)

My research into Virtual Reality technology and its central property of immersion has indicated that immersion in Virtual Reality (VR) electronic systems is a significant key to the understanding of contemporary culture as well as considerable aspects of previous culture as detected in the histories of philosophy and the visual arts. The fundamental change in aesthetic perception engendered by immersion, a perception which is connected to the ideal of total-immersion in virtual space, identifies certain shifts in ontology which are (...) relevant to a better understanding of the human being. This understanding was achieved through a broad inquiry into the histories of Virtual Reality, philosophy, and the visual arts and has lead to the formulation of an aesthetic theory of immersive consciousness indicative of immersive culture. The primary subject of this discourse is immersion then: an experience which will be identified within the dissertation as the indispensable characteristic of Virtual Reality. The understanding of immersion arrived at here will be used to fashion a synchronous theory of art particularly informed by encounters and concepts of immersion into virtuality. To sufficiently address this subject in a scholarly fashion, I have researched, found and accumulated aesthetic and philosophic examples of immersive tendencies, as found within the histories of art and philosophy, which subsequently contributed towards the articulation of what I have come to call immersive consciousness. As a result of formulating such an immersive consciousness, a good deal of the basis for the questioning of the Western ontological tradition has been found in the Western tradition itself when we look with new eyes and ask new uncertain questions. Moreover, this immersive consciousness will be used to propose some abstract questions encircling today's electronic-based culture. Through the structuring of the argument within the thesis - and overtly within the conclusion - I have articulated a non-teleological creative strategy which provides the basis for an unconstraining integration of noologies (ways of semblancing the thinking process). This strategy provides a means of exemplifying - and for honoring - various methods of thinking. This structuring strategy is consistent with the 'hacker ethic' as defined by Steven Levy, as a demand that access to computers - and anything which might teach us something about the way the world works - should be unlimited and total. To follow this strategy, this dissertation has set out to understand how topical conceptions of virtual immersion connect to pre-existing systems of thought as revealed in art as they have extended out of antecedent ontological self-understandings, historical human self-understandings which have evidenced themselves in the elaboration of technological objectives. To do this I have forged a certain rhizomatic paternity/maternity for Virtual Reality within this dissertation by joining choice immersive examples of simulacra technology into mental connections with the relevant examples culled from the histories of art, architecture, information-technology, sex, myth, space, consciousness and philosophy. (shrink)

The noise factor is the ratio of signal to noise of an input signal to that of the output signal. Noise can block or interfere with the meaning of a message in both human and electronic communication. But in Information Theory, noise is still considered to be information. By refining the definition of noise as that which addresses us outside of our preferred comfort zone, Joseph Nechvatal's Immersion Into Noise investigates multiple aspects of cultural noise by applying the audio understanding (...) of noise to the visual, architectural and cognitive domains. Nechvatal expands and extends our understanding of the function of cultural noise by taking the reader through the immersive and phenomenal aspects of noise into algorithmic and network contexts, beginning with his experience in the Abside of the Grotte de Lascaux. -/- Immersion Into Noise is intended as a conceptual handbook useful for the development of a personal-political-visionary art of noise. On a planet that is increasingly technologically linked and globally mediated, how might noises break and re-connect in distinctive and productive ways within practices located in the world of art and thought? Joseph Nechvatal explores this intriguing question in Immersion Into Noise. (shrink)

This essay addresses the violence of the digital world through its relationship to the visuality of noise and how it shapes the image of thought. Noting how deep and contemplative silence is integral to any creative and critical process, it fleshes out the ways the hyper-technologization of life is throwing us into an immersive abyss. This represents another indicator in the digital colonization of the human condition, through which the poetic is being completely appropriated by a technological vision for (...) species being. Calling for a revival in attentive silence, it draws upon literary thinkers and artists, to move beyond the mimetic understanding for art and reveal the violent depths of digitalization and its total noise seduction which ultimately devour its own content. Over-stimulation thus becomes an audible clamor for lives lost within a digital trace; lives which no longer find they are able to cast any meaningful shadow. (shrink)

Covid-19 has prompted a surge of data visualizations that have been published for public consumption, yet, many have not had broad appeal or may have not been well-understood by laypeople. A data storytelling platform called Flow Immersive has been created to successfully engage both laypeople and experts in understanding complex information. This tool integrates emerging technologies [e.g., augmented reality and virtual reality ] with a multiplatform, multiuser publishing approach. From October 2020 to December 2020, Flow’s Covid-19 AR videos captured (...) 9 million views, and have been used in multiple professional presentations. This paper documents the journey from development to deployment, and some user feedback which all led to breakthroughs in scalability and higher levels of engagement. (shrink)

The past decades have seen a rise in religious and secular responses to inequality that seek to offer those who are relatively wealthy an opportunity to personally engage with impoverished people and places. This article examines three cases of elite white South Africans who intentionally immersed themselves in poor urban environments. In dialogue with the anthropology of ethics, I argue that immersion was seen as an experimental tool for transforming the self and cultivating virtues of empathy and responsibility towards others. (...) In this way, immersion acted as a technology of the self, linking care of the self to care of others. Yet such experimentation was not without risk. Though imagined as a tool that could promote care of the self and care of others, immersion carries with it the potential to reinforce power divides and/or solicit negative moral judgment. (shrink)

Globalization and informatization are reshaping human life and social behaviors. The purpose is to explore the worldwide strategies to cultivate international talents with a global vision. As a global language with the largest population, English, and especially its learning effect, have always been the major concerns of scholars and educators. This work innovatively studies the combination of immersion-based English teaching with virtual reality technology. Then, based on the experimental design mode, 106 students from a Chinese school were selected for (...) a quasi-experimental study for 16 weeks. The collected data were analyzed by computer statistical software, and hypotheses are verified. The results showed that there is a significantly positive correlation between VR and immersion-based language teaching. There is a significantly positive correlation between immersion-based language teaching and academic achievement, and VR is positively correlated with learning outcome. Compared with other state-of-art research methods, this work modifies the students’ oral test through the analysis and comparison with the system database, and the students’ learning effect is greatly improved. Finally, some suggestions are put forward according to the research results to provide an experimental reference for English teachers and future linguistics teaching. (shrink)

BackgroundEven though virtual reality is more and more considered for its power of distraction in different medical contexts, the optimal conditions for its use still have to be determined in order to design interfaces adapted to therapeutic support in oncology.ObjectiveThe objective of this study was to examine the benefits of VR using two immersion methods and comparing them with each other in a population of women with breast cancer who have undergone breast surgery, during scar massage sessions.MethodsIn a physiotherapy center, (...) each patient participated in four experimental conditions in a random order: two sessions used virtual immersion, one session proposed musical listening and the fourth one was a standard session care. The impact of the level of patient involvement in the virtual world was apprehended through the evaluation of the feeling of presence; the estimation of elapsed time of the physiotherapy sessions and particular attention was paid to the evaluation of patient emotional state.ResultsOur study showed an increase in positive emotions and a decrease in anxiety regardless which support methods were offered. Participatory VR created a feeling of more intense spatial presence.ConclusionOur results highlight the importance of the context in which VR should be offered. The presence of the practitioner and his interactions with the patient can provide a context just as favorable in reducing anxiety as the emotional regulation tools used. The use of technological tools should be favored when the practitioner is unavailable during the treatment phase or, even, in order to reduce the monotonous nature of repetitive therapeutic sessions. (shrink)

Background: The new human coronavirus that leads to COVID-19 has spread rapidly around the world and has a high degree of lethality. In more severe cases, patients remain hospitalized for several days under treatment of the health team. Thus, it is important to develop and use technologies with the aim to strengthen conventional therapy by encouraging movement, physical activity, and improving cardiorespiratory fitness for patients. In this sense, therapies for exposure to virtual reality are promising and have been shown to (...) be an adequate and equivalent alternative to conventional exercise programs.Aim: This is a study protocol with the aim of comparing the conventional physical therapy intervention with the use of a non-immersive VR software during COVID-19 hospitalization.Methods: Fifty patients hospitalized with confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19 will be divided in two groups under physiotherapy treatment using conventional or VR intervention: Group A: participants with COVID-19 will start the first day of the protocol with VR tasks in the morning and then in the second period, in the afternoon, will perform the conventional exercises and Group B: participants with COVID-19 will start the first day with conventional exercises in the morning and in the second period, in the afternoon, will perform activity with VR. All participants will be evaluated with different motor and physiologic scales before and after the treatment to measure improvements.Conclusion: Considering the importance of benefits from physical activity during hospitalization, VR software shows promise as a potential mechanism for improving physical activity. The results of this study may provide new insights into hospital rehabilitation.Trial Registration:ClinicalTrials.gov, identifier: NCT04537858. Registered on 01 September 2020. (shrink)

The goal of this article is to present a first list of ethical concerns that may arise from research and personal use of virtual reality (VR) and related technology, and to offer concrete recommendations for minimizing those risks. Many of the recommendations call for focused research initiatives. In the first part of the article, we discuss the relevant evidence from psychology that motivates our concerns. In Section “Plasticity in the Human Mind,” we cover some of the main results suggesting (...) that one’s environment can influence one’s psychological states, as well as recent work on inducing illusions of embodiment. Then, in Section “Illusions of Embodiment and Their Lasting Effect,” we go on to discuss recent evidence indicating that immersion in VR can have psychological effects that last after leaving the virtual environment. In the second part of the article, we turn to the risks and recommendations. We begin, in Section “The Research Ethics of VR,” with the research ethics of VR, covering six main topics: the limits of experimental environments, informed consent, clinical risks, dual-use, online research, and a general point about the limitations of a code of conduct for research. Then, in Section “Risks for Individuals and Society,” we turn to the risks of VR for the general public, covering four main topics: long-term immersion, neglect of the social and physical environment, risky content, and privacy. We offer concrete recommendations for each of these 10 topics, summarized in Table 1. (shrink)

This paper mainly introduces the application of immersive media in Chinese public cultural participation from the perspective of cultural education, as well as the important value of the application of immersive media in expanding the breadth, accuracy, and depth of education and thereby improving the quality of education. On this basis, the realistic path of the role of immersive media technology in further realizing public cultural participation is discussed. First of all, through a questionnaire survey, it (...) analyzes the problems existing in Chinese public cultural participation from the perspective of cultural education and the application of immersive media in Chinese public cultural participation. Secondly, from the aspects that the application of immersive media can extend the space of cultural participation, enrich the content of cultural participation and strengthen the value recognition of cultural participation, it demonstrates that immersive media helps to solve the dilemma of Chinese public cultural participation as a whole and thus improve the quality of education. This will bring new possibilities for expanding Chinese public cultural participation and promoting public social education and cultural quality education. Finally, it discusses the further development of immersive media technology in the field of cultural education from the aspects of optimizing the ecology of immersive media development, promoting the R&D and application of immersive media technology, and promoting the integration of immersive media with cultural participation space and cultural education content. (shrink)

Immersive virtual reality (VR) emerges as a promising research and clinical tool. However, several studies suggest that VR induced adverse symptoms and effects (VRISE) may undermine the health and safety standards, and the reliability of the scientific results. In the current literature review, the technical reasons for the adverse symptomatology are investigated to provide suggestions and technological knowledge for the implementation of VR head-mounted display (HMD) systems in cognitive neuroscience. The technological systematic literature indicated features pertinent to display, sound, (...) motion tracking, navigation, ergonomic interactions, user experience, and computer’s hardware that should be considered by the researchers. Subsequently, a meta-analysis of 44 neuroscientific or neuropsychological studies involving VR HMD systems was performed. The meta-analysis of the VR studies demonstrated that the new generation HMDs induced significantly fewer dropouts and VRISE. Importantly, the commercial versions of the new generation HMDs with ergonomic interactions had zero incidents of adverse symptomatology and dropouts. Solely, HMDs equivalent to or greater than the commercial versions of contemporary HMDs accompanied with ergonomic interactions are suitable for implementation in cognitive neuroscience. In conclusion, researchers’ technological competency, along with meticulous methods and reports pertinent to software, hardware, and VRISE, are paramount to ensure the health and safety standards and the reliability of neuroscientific results. (shrink)

Immersive virtual environments can produce a state of behaviour referred to as ‘presence’, during which the individual responds to the virtual environment as if it were real. Presence can be arranged to scientifically evaluate and affect our consciousness within a controlled virtual environment. This phenomenon makes the use of virtual environments amenable to existing and in-development forms of therapy for various conditions. Delirium in the intensive care unit (ICU) is one such condition for which virtual reality (VR) technology (...) has not been evaluated to date. We are currently assessing the feasibility and utility of a delirium prevention and treatment system, which implements VR to improve quality of sleep, reduce pain, lower usage of sedatives, and stimulate cognition. The proposed system will consist of 3-axis wearable accelerometers, 6-DOF position trackers, a VR system and apps designed to promote sleep quality and mindfulness. Our a priori hypothesis is that our VR therapy system would lower the occurrence of delirium in patients admitted to ICUs. (shrink)

While the implementation of digital technology in psychiatry appears promising, there is an urgent need to address the implications of the absence of ethical design in the early development of such technologies. Some authors have noted the gap between technology development and ethical analysis and have called for an upstream examination of the ethical issues raised by digital technologies. In this paper, we address this suggestion, particularly in relation to digital healthcare technologies for patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. (...) The introduction of digital technologies in psychiatry offers a broad spectrum of diagnostic and treatment options tailored to the health needs and goals of patients’ care. These technologies include wearable devices, smartphone applications for high-immersive virtual realities, smart homes, telepsychiatry and messaging systems for patients in rural areas. The availability of these technologies could increase access to mental health services and improve the diagnostics of mental disorders.Additional Instruction AbstractIn this descriptive review, we systematize ethical concerns about digital technologies for mental health with a particular focus on individuals suffering from schizophrenia. There are many unsolved dilemmas and conflicts of interest in the implementation of these technologies, such as (1) the lack of evidence on efficacy and impact on self-perception; (2) the lack of clear standards for the safety of their daily implementation; (3) unclear roles of technology and a shift in the responsibilities of all parties; (4) no guarantee of data confidentiality; and (5) the lack of a user-centered design that meets the particular needs of patients with schizophrenia. mHealth can improve care in psychiatry and make mental healthcare services more efficient and personalized while destigmatizing mental health disorders. To ensure that these technologies will benefit people with mental health disorders, we need to heighten sensitivity to ethical issues among mental healthcare specialists, health policy makers, software developers, patients themselves and their proxies. Additionally, we need to develop frameworks for furthering sustainable development in the digital technologies industry and for the responsible usage of such technologies for patients with schizophrenia in the clinical setting. We suggest that digital technology in psychiatry, particularly for schizophrenia and other serious mental health disorders, should be integrated into treatment with professional supervision rather than as a self-treatment tool. (shrink)

In this article, we address the problem of the potential crisis in people’s life’s meaning due to massive automation-driven technological unemployment. Assuming that the problem of (re)distribution of economic resources to the whole of society in such a scenario will be solved (e.g. through provision of a Universal Basic Income), the question arises concerning the meaning of people’s lives in a world in which almost everyone does not have to (or even could not) work in order to live. Here, we (...) side with many current proposals that paid work is not the only possible source of meaning and hence, that a meaningful life could indeed be led in a post-work society. We especially focus on one of the most developed accounts, Danaher’s Virtual Utopia (Danaher, 2016, 2019, 2022). According to him, living immersed in playful virtual worlds where new, expanded and personalized possibilities of personal and collective experiences and actions, could not only be perfectly meaningful lives, but furthermore, “be the utopia we are looking for” (Danaher, 2019, p. 270). However, our analysis will suggest that although it is a very well thought and carefully articulated position, it suffers from various important problems. Our criticism will be based on an alternative framework to think about life’s meaning and the conditions for leading a good life in general. This alternative is based on the philosophy of buen vivir (“good living”). This notion has its roots in common aspects of various Latin American indigenous cultures regarding a community-centered way of life where humans, society and nature are taken to be deeply interconnected and interdependent, and where the notions of respect, harmony and balance are at the core of this interrelationship (Gudynas, 2011; Acosta, 2008; Beling et al., 2021). Buen vivir has many facets, but we will focus on three: the importance of healthy human communities, the human-nature relationship, and the intrinsic value of nature. Based on these, we argue that the Virtual Utopia is not a good candidate for human’s post-work utopia because i) it unnecessarily augments the environmental damage that is already involved in massive labor automation; ii) it entails an unnecessary and detrimental dependence on technology for human relationships; and iii) increases the severance of the link between humanity and nature. We conclude that the buen vivir approach is a promising candidate for an alternative utopian project, but one that needs further construction. (shrink)

In this article I examine a recent development in online communication, the immersive virtual worlds of Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs). I argue that these environments provide a distinct form of online experience from the experience available through earlier generation forms of online communication such as newsgroups, chat rooms, email and instant messaging. The experience available to participants in MMORPGs is founded on shared activity, while the experience of earlier generation online communication is largely if not wholly dependent (...) on the communication itself. This difference, I argue, makes interaction in immersive virtual worlds such as MMORPGs relevantly similar to interaction in the physical world, and distinguishes both physical world and immersive virtual world interaction from other forms of online communication. I argue that to the extent that shared activity is a core element in the formation of friendships, friendships can form in immersive virtual worlds as they do in the physical world, and that this possibility was unavailable in earlier forms of online interaction. I do, however, note that earlier forms of online interaction are capable of sustaining friendships formed through either physical or immersive virtual world interaction. I conclude that we cannot any longer make a sharp distinction between the physical and the virtual world, as the characteristics of friendship are able to be developed in each. (shrink)

The paper proposes the notion of “Two-Worlds Model” (TWM) as a theoretical framework in order to analyse some currents in the contemporary debate on technologically mediated experience. According to this model, technologically mediated experience—especially immersive experience—can be described as a form of “digital metempsychosis”—a feeling of being elsewhere. The paper argues that this model is not new in the history of philosophy, and that it is a very common theoretical and cultural strategy, often used to reduce medial differences—differences in (...) the way of being or of experiencing something—as objectual difference. By analysing some specific topics—the most common accounts of immersive experience, the relation between immersivity and presence, and the notion of “cyberspace”—the paper aims at showing the limits of the TWM, in particular when it is used in order to describe technologically mediated experience. (shrink)

This essay discusses the moral costs and benefits of sexual technology. It starts with first-wave sexual technology, such as dating apps, messaging apps, and social networks, and then discusses second-wave sexual technology, which offers users more immersive experiences, such as virtual reality and sex robots. The paper argues that, overall, such technologies provide more benefits than they incur costs. Finally, the paper discusses the rise of a new identity—digisexuality, explaining that digisexuals are people who consider sexual (...) technology an essential part of who they are, and who might forego relationships with other people. The paper argues that the development of this new identity is a good thing, and that reasons against it are not convincing. (shrink)

This article argues that by recognizing the fundamental relationship between praxical time and dwelling as a matrix of interweaving modes of being, society can subvert the potential reification of humanity by technology. This can only be achieved through a democratic process that involves participatory agents not only at the design level but also in the event of naming future innovations. By looking at the work of Alain Badiou, it is shown how a fusion of Heideggerian-inspired phenomenology and speculative ontology (...) is critical for the advancement of social theory, as revolutionary technologies become increasingly immersive. (shrink)

Sense of presence and extraneous cognitive load are the two psychological effects widely employed to explain the cognitive outcomes caused by high-immersive media. This study identified the concepts of both technological affordance and the psychological effects of VR learning. It investigated the mechanism by which immersion leads to better or worse communication in the context of art education. We operationalized the concept of immersion into two levels: a high-immersive VR system and a low-immersive tablet system. Through a (...) between-subject experiment, we found that higher immersion not only led to a greater sense of presence but also lowered extraneous cognitive load. Enjoyment and attention increased as a sense of presence rose but were not necessarily predicted by extraneous cognitive load. This study found that sense of presence was a more robust explanatory variable than ECL and that cognitive load could be lower in a high-immersive environment with content specifically designed for VR. (shrink)

In 2015 the first mass migration and the first geopolitical and transnational crisis of the digital age began. This brought along the awakening of a new phase in slavery trade and trafficking of human beings (THB) at the European borders. In this article I introduce an ongoing field study I began in January 2016, in collaboration with experts from Spanish and European institutions, that so far has taken me to hotspots and borders, and to the accumulation of a vast multimedia (...) archive. This led to the creation of zonaautonomamilitarizada.eu, an immersive/360°, interactive and reactive audio-visual performative system conceptually rooted in military technologies, second-order cybernetics and mass media developments. (shrink)

The digital humanities have developed in concert with online systems that increase the accessibility and speed of learning. Whereas previously students were immersed in the fluidity of campus life, they have become suspended and drawn-into various streams and currents of digital pedagogy, which articulate new forms of epistemological movement, often operating at speeds outside the lived time and rhythm of human thought. When assessing learning technologies, we have to consider the degree to which they complement the rhythms immanent to human (...) thought, knowledge, investigation, and experimentation.In this paper, we examine learning from a humanities perspective, arguing that reading, writing, and thinking are ways of learning underscored by various genres of movement that segue with or diverge from the movements inherent to digital technologies, especially those deployed in learning systems. Using the work of thinkers such as John Dewey and Michel Serres, we examine the importance of movement in dialogue, where to truly learn involves embedding oneself in the flow of thought, accepting the flexibility of concepts, and aligning oneself with a community of thinkers. (shrink)

Aristotle’s account of friendship has largely withstood the test of time. Yet there are overlooked elements of his account that, when challenged by apparent threats of current and emerging communication technologies, reveal his account to be remarkably prescient. I evaluate the danger that technological advances in communication pose to the future of friendship by examining and defending Aristotle’s claim that perfect or character-friends must live together. I concede that technologically-mediated communication can aid existing character-friendships, but I argue that character-friendships cannot (...) be created and sustained entirely through technological meditation. I examine text-based technologies, such as Facebook and email, and engage a non-text based technology that poses the greatest threat to my thesis—Skype. I then address philosophical literature on friendship and technology that has emerged in the last decade in Ethics and Information Technology to elucidate and defend my account by contrast. I engage Cocking and Matthews (2000), who argue that friendship cannot be created and sustained entirely through text-based contact, Briggle (2008), who argues that friendship can be created and sustained entirely through text-based contact, and Munn (2012), who argues that friendship cannot be created and entirely sustained through text-based contact but can be created and sustained entirely in immersive virtual worlds. My account discusses a certain kind of friendship, character-friendship, and a certain kind of technology, Skype, that these accounts do not. Examination of these essays helps to demonstrate that character friendship cannot be sustained entirely by technologically-aided communication and that character-friends must live together. (shrink)

Over the course of the twentieth century, hydraulic engineering has come to rely primarily on the use of computational models. Disco and van den Ende hint towards the reasons for widespread adoption of computational models by pointing out that such models fulfill a crucial role as management tools in Dutch water management, and meet a more general desire to quantify water-related phenomena. The successful application of computational models implies blackboxing : “[w]hen a machine runs efficiently … one need focus only (...) on its inputs and outputs and not on its internal complexity. Thus, paradoxically, the more science and technology succeed, the more opaque and obscure they become”.. (shrink)

Open Education opens up learning opportunities to, potentially, every person in the world. Additionally, it allows teachers, researchers, and practitioners to find, share, reuse, and improve existing resources under a dependable legal framework. Aiming to spread and foster the introduction of open policies in Higher Education institutions, the gamified interactive learning experience Catch the Open! was developed. Catch the Open! targets HE educators who wish to learn, or who wish to deepen their existing knowledge, about OE and Open Educational Practices. (...) Within the gamified learning experience, the user becomes an educator, Alex, the game character, who receives a task from the Rector: to investigate how to best include OE and OEP in teaching and learning practice within the institution. Alex proceeds to explore and gather information in a web-based 2D virtual HE institution where students, colleagues, and guest researchers will help her to develop a comprehensive understanding of OE and the practical application of OEP. The educational content within Catch the Open! is underpinned by an OE competences framework for HE educators, developed in a previous phase of the Erasmus+ OpenGame project. In this paper, the design process to link pedagogical and technological approaches, which results in the Catch the Open! gamified web-based interactive application, is presented as well as the application itself. Moreover, two phases of piloting with 153 HE educators from six different HE institutions are presented. The obtained findings showed that the gamified environment helped in learning about OE. On the other hand, learners also suggested several improvement aspects of the gamified environment, such as the length of finishing a learning mission while playing. (shrink)

This paper analyzes in the use of virtual reality when used to induce full-body ownership in violent offenders in order to elicit empathetic feelings by allowing them to embody the virtual body of a victim of domestic abuse. The authors explore potentially harmful effects to individuals participating in this kind of therapy and question whether consent is fully informed. The paper concludes with guidelines for ethical research and rehabilitation using this innovative technology.

Technology explosion induced by information explosion will eventually change artifacts into intelligent autonomous agents consisting of surrogates and mediators from which humans can receive services without special training. Four potential problems might arise as a result of the paradigm shift: technology abuse, responsibility flaw, moral in crisis, and overdependence on artifacts. Although the first and second might be resolved in principle by introduction of public mediators, the rest seems beyond technical solution. Under the circumstances, a reasonable goal might (...) be to create a mutual dependency between empathy and technology: Using technology to help people cultivate empathy among people, so empathy in the society may allow people to help each other to recover from disasters beyond the scope of the assumption underlying the society of mediators. I highlight an immersive collaborative interaction environment for helping people share first-person view and its application to building empathic agents. (shrink)

In this important and challenging contribution to the rapidly developing philosophy of technology Ihde proposes nothing less than a "systematic reformulation of a framework and set of questions regarding technology in its cultural setting". More specifically, he sees his task as twofold: to provide a perspective from which to view "the phenomenon of human-technology relations" and to offer a "framework or 'paradigm' for understanding". Rejecting the distanced, objective, or "bird's-eye" perspective as inappropriate for considering a subject-matter in (...) which we are inextricably immersed, he adopts a perspective which he calls "navigational," one of finding bearings and directions within the fluid and dynamic situations of our technologically textured lifeworld. Remarking that such a perspective is "necessarily relativistic," he claims that, nonetheless, the employment of phenomenology and hermeneutical methods is able to yield a framework for understanding this lifeworld. Ihde makes these points and supports them in the "Introduction" and first four chapters of the book, which together comprise a general introduction to his overall approach, basic assumptions, and methodology. In the three chapters which follow he provides us with some results of his use of these methods in three "programs" which move, as he puts it, from a "phenomenology of technics," through "cultural hermeneutics," to a more speculative consideration of "lifeworld shapes." This movement is avowedly from a more focused and secure description of the essential structures of material human-technology relations to increasingly larger and less secure depictions of our technological culture and lifeworld. He then concludes the book with certain "stewardship recommendations for the inherited earth.". (shrink)

A major concern of public health authorities is to also encourage adults to be exposed to enriched environments during the pandemic lockdown, as was recently the case worldwide during the COVID-19 outbreak. Games for adults that require physical activity, known as exergames, offer opportunities here. In particular, the output of the gaming industry nowadays offers computer games with extended reality which combines real and virtual environments and refers to human-machine interactions generated by computers and wearable technologies. For example, playing the (...) game in front of a computer screen while standing or walking on a force plate or treadmill allows the user to react to certain infrastructural changes and obstacles within the virtual environment. Recent developments, optimization, and minimizations in wearable technology have produced wireless headsets and sensors that allow for unrestricted whole-body movement. This makes the virtual experience more immersive and provides the opportunity for greater engagement than traditional exercise. Currently, XR serves as an umbrella term for current immersive technologies as well as future realities that enhance the experience with features that produce new controllable environments. Overall, these technology-enhanced exergames challenge the adult user and modify the experience by increasing sensory stimulation and creating an environment where virtual and real elements interact. As a therapy, exergames can potentially create new environments and visualizations that may be more ecologically valid and thus simulate real activities of daily living that can be trained. Furthermore, by adding telemedicine features to the exergame, progress over time can be closely monitored and feedback provided, offering future opportunities for cognitive-motor assessment. To more optimally serve and challenge adults both physically and cognitively over time in future lockdowns, there is a need to provide long-term remote training and feedback. Particularly related to activities of daily living that create opportunities for effective and lasting rehabilitation for elderly and sufferers from chronic non-communicable diseases. The aim of the current review is to envision the remote training and monitoring of physical and cognitive aspects for adults with limited mobility, through the implementation of concurrent telehealth and exergame features using XR and wireless sensor technologies. (shrink)

Community technology design has been deeply affected by paradigm shifts and dominant discourses of its seminal disciplines, such as Human Computer Interaction, Cultural and Design theories, and Community Development as reflected in Community Narratives. A particular distinction of community technology design endeavours has been their cultural stance, which directs the agendas, interactions, and outcomes of the collaboration. Applying different cultural lenses to community technology design, shifts not only practices but also directs the levels of awareness, thereby unfolding (...) fundamentally distinct cultural engagement approaches. Previous community technology design research indulged in cross-, inter-, and multicultural approaches to community engagement; it was occupied with meticulously deconstructing and reconstructing perspectives, interactions, roles, and agendas. We argue that when deeply immersed in joint design activities in long-term collaborations, we look beyond individual cultures and enter a transcultural mode of engagement. A transcultural community technology design endeavour supports a continuous creation and re-creation of new meanings, originating from individual entities yet being diffused and continuously reflected within the existing design space. We suggest that within community technology design, a context with abundant cultural diversity, a heightened awareness becomes a necessity. We exemplify different instantiations of the cultural engagement approaches within our long-term collaborations and technology design projects with indigenous communities in Malaysian Borneo and Namibia. A transcultural approach to indigenous knowledge preservation and digitisation efforts with indigenous communities opens up a controversial debate about protecting versus integrating local epistemologies. (shrink)

Technological developments often bring about new risks. Informed consent has been proposed as a means to legitimize the imposition of technological risks. This principle was first introduced in medical practice to assure the autonomy of the patient.The introduction of IC in the field of technological practice raises questions about the comparability of the type of informed consent. To what extent are thepossibilities to include laypeople in making decisions regarding risks similar in the technological field to giving informed consent in the (...) medical field and whatdoes this imply for the design and implementation of IC in the technological field? Medical and the technological practice are clearly alike in that both fieldsare characterized by highly specialized, technical knowledge which can be quite inaccessible to the average layperson. However, a fundamental difference ariseswith regard to the aim, knowledge of risks and exclusiveness of the practices in each field. The differences in aim imply that the necessity for each practice isperceived differently by laypeople, thus leading them to assess the respective risks differently. The differences in knowledge of risks arise from the variabilityin the ways that can be used to describe a given risk. Definition of risk in medical practice is more homogenous in this respect than the risk definition intechnological fields. Futhermore, medical practice tends to be more exclusive, leading laypeople immersed in that practice to necessarily embrace most of thefundamental underlying that practice. These differences result in divergent recommendations for the implementation of informed consent in the technological field, basically: there is a need for more extensive procedure and for less decisive authority for the individual. (shrink)

This article introduces a novel use of technologies to visualize space and temporary structures in public space as a critical and speculative method for artistic research. Imitation and iconification have been vital in visual culture since civilization began. Science has become proficient in picturing invisible matter and numerical data. However, we are limited to visualizing these data in an iconic, ‘understandable’ way, that is, to some extent, reductionist. A non-naturalistic artistic visualization (NNAVi) method is proposed to discover and present the (...) underlying context of objects and space. First, this article discusses the representational function of artistic images and the artistic use of emerging technologies to represent invisible information. Following the discussion, the case study of the virtual reality (VR) artwork The Last Recreational Land shows how NNAVi can be applied. The case study starts with an exploration of the pandemic’s context and nature and then moves to an explanation of the multisensory and immersive setting of the artwork. Interweaving case studies and theoretical references, the article elaborates on how the VR experience is used as a device to respond to the pandemic. By deconstructing the relationship between visualization, imitation and iconification, the article theorizes NNAVi as a new methodology for artistic research that provides tangible insights into the nature of the pandemic. (shrink)

This paper examines how young peoples’ lived experiences with personal technologies can be used to teach engineering ethics in a way which facilitates greater engagement with the subject. Engineering ethics can be challenging to teach: as a form of practical ethics, it is framed around future workplace experience in a professional setting which students are assumed to have no prior experience of. Yet the current generations of engineering students, who have been described as ‘digital natives’, do however have immersive (...) personal experience with digital technologies; and experiential learning theory describes how students learn ethics more successfully when they can draw on personal experience which give context and meaning to abstract theories. This paper reviews current teaching practices in engineering ethics; and examines young people’s engagement with technologies including cell phones, social networking sites, digital music and computer games to identify social and ethical elements of these practices which have relevance for the engineering ethics curricula. From this analysis three case studies are developed to illustrate how facets of the use of these technologies can be drawn on to teach topics including group work and communication; risk and safety; and engineering as social experimentation. Means for bridging personal experience and professional ethics when teaching these cases are discussed. The paper contributes to research and curriculum development in engineering ethics education, and to wider education research about methods of teaching ‘the net generation’. (shrink)

As the development of artificial intelligence technology, the deep-learning -based Virtual Reality technology, and DL technology are applied in human-computer interaction, and their impacts on modern film and TV works production and audience psychology are analyzed. In film and TV production, audiences have a higher demand for the verisimilitude and immersion of the works, especially in film production. Based on this, a 2D image recognition system for human body motions and a 3D recognition system for human body (...) motions based on the convolutional neural network algorithm of DL are proposed, and an analysis framework is established. The proposed systems are simulated on practical and professional datasets, respectively. The results show that the algorithm's computing performance in 2D image recognition is 7–9 times higher than that of the Open Pose method. It runs at 44.3 ms in 3D motion recognition, significantly lower than the Open Pose method's 794.5 and 138.7 ms. Although the detection accuracy has dropped by 2.4%, it is more efficient and convenient without limitations of scenarios in practical applications. The AI-based VR and DL enriches and expands the role and application of computer graphics in film and TV production using HCI technology theoretically and practically. (shrink)