Scientists have taken the notion ‘you are what you eat’ to a new level by using virtual reality to help people see the world through the eyes of a cow – or a piece of coral – to make them feel part of the natural world.

 

With several consumer virtual reality headsets now on the market, researchers hope experiencing life from an animal’s point of view could change environmental behaviour where other methods have failed.

 

As cows, participants donned virtual reality headsets and were left to walk around a virtual pasture on all fours, jabbed by a virtual cattle prod, and told they were to be loaded on to a truck.

 

As coral, volunteers saw the reef around them decay as the ocean acidified, their own ‘body’ corrode, and their branches break off with a crack.

 

These immersive experiences led people to feel more connected with nature than those who simply watched the simulation play out on a screen, the study found. The aim of the experiments was to make the distant consequences of damaging consumption much more real.

 

The research is part of an emerging field that uses virtual reality to enhance empathy.

 

One of the unsolved challenges for virtual reality is simulating touch, in order to convince users that they truly inhabit their virtual bodies. In this experiment, some participants were prodded in real life to make being virtually poked with a cattle prod or bumped by a fishing net as coral feel more real.

 

The study, which is co-authored by Grace Ahn, an assistant professor of advertising at the University of Georgia, also involved researchers from Stanford University and the University of Connecticut and was recently published in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, does not claim virtual reality produces instantaneous transformations in levels of environmental compassion. But it does argue it could be used as a valuable tool in promoting ecological awareness. (The Guardian)

 

 

PHOTO: In the cow project, participants walked around a virtual pasture on all fours, were jabbed by a virtual cattle prod, and told they were to be loaded on a truck.

CREDIT: Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication.