ABSTRACT
People tend to think of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) as technologies designed to fool the eye. But it might be more correct to say that these are technologies designed to fool the body. When a new medium appears, people copy things from the old one. When motion pictures were invented, people filmed stage plays, not realizing that cuts and editing would be the heart of the new medium. As noted as far back as 1996 in Randy Pausch’s study of Disney’s Aladdin Magic Carpet VR Adventure, players new to VR are hesitant to turn their heads and look around. This seems to be because most of us have a lifetime of training that screen-based media is best enjoyed by sitting and facing forward. VR and AR projects have a lot of unknowns, and necessarily require time for experimentation and adaptation.
