In tests performed on rats, researchers discovered that their brains perceived reality completely differently from virtual reality:
"The pattern of activity in a brain region involved in spatial learning in the virtual world is completely different than when it processes activity in the real world," said Mayank Mehta, a UCLA professor of physics, neurology and neurobiology in the UCLA College and the study's senior author. "Since so many people are using virtual reality, it is important to understand why there are such big differences."
The study was published in the journal Nature Neuroscience.
The scientists were studying the hippocampus, a region of the brain involved in diseases such as Alzheimer's, stroke, depression, schizophrenia, epilepsy and post-traumatic stress disorder. The hippocampus also plays an important role in forming new memories and creating mental maps of space. For example, when a person explores a room, hippocampal neurons become selectively active, providing a "cognitive map" of the environment.
[...] To test whether the hippocampus could actually form spatial maps using only visual landmarks, Mehta's team devised a non-invasive virtual reality environment and studied how the hippocampal neurons in the brains of rats reacted in the virtual world without the ability to use smells and sounds as cues.
[...] The scientists were surprised to find that the results from the virtual and real environments were entirely different. In the virtual world, the rats' hippocampal neurons seemed to fire completely randomly, as if the neurons had no idea where the rat was -- even though the rats seemed to behave perfectly normally in the real and virtual worlds.
Journal reference: "Impaired spatial selectivity and intact phase precession in two-dimensional virtual reality." Nature Neuroscience, 2014; DOI: 10.1038/nn.3884
(Score: 2) by fishybell on Sunday November 30 2014, @09:48AM
Seriously though, I'm picturing rats with little VR goggles, and I'm left with nothing but my imagination.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Gravis on Sunday November 30 2014, @01:27PM
Researchers placed a small harness around rats and put them on a treadmill surrounded by a "virtual world" on large video screens -- a virtual environment they describe as even more immersive than IMAX -- in an otherwise dark, quiet room.
i think there are some factors in their VR setup that caused the rat's brain to recognize the environment was very different.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Sunday November 30 2014, @03:09PM
Indeed. I mean come on, they have a visual-only virtual environment without the stereoscopic vision that lets you constantly cross-reference the relative 3D positions of the world around you, and they expect it to be processed the same way? Hell, I bet any gamer could tell them that wouldn't work - I know I have far more trouble building a mental map of a video game world than a real one.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Immerman on Sunday November 30 2014, @03:15PM
... and I belong to a species that's heavily visually oriented. Unlike rats whose sense of smell and hearing are far more sensitive, and have been previously shown to be heavily involved in navigation. Plus the whisker thing - I don't know how much they're involved in mapping, but it's gotta throw them off when they can't feel that wall they're running along.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 30 2014, @10:21AM
Bad news for America's Army, Call Of Duty, and every other video game used for brainwashing military recruits. Virtual reality isn't real enough. Looks like they're going to have to return to the good old ways of training by lynching niggers in the real world.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 30 2014, @06:29PM
Most of the time I've spent in FPS's felt like wandering aimlessly with no real sense of the structure I'm in. I'd like to see how different environments affect the results, e.g how does a multiplayer CoD map differ from something like Half life2? Skyrim? Riven/Exile? Could tell us a lot about proper level design.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 01 2014, @05:13AM
Why not compare to a game of capture the flag -- in the real world. Those used to be common on campus, involved a lot of fun running around the halls at night. Should be a lot easier to organize these days with some type of messaging to synchronize the players.