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Virtual Reality
Virtual reality (called VR for short) is a computergenerated artificial image or environment that is presented to the user in such a way that it appears and feels like a real space or situation. With a VR device, young people may “experience” flying a spaceship right at home by wearing VR goggles and headsets. A user is “virtually there,” hence the term. The VR experience effectively immerses the user to interact and control the virtual world in a dynamic way.
This entry provides a basic introduction to VR, explains its application and relevance to children and adolescents, and examines its conceptual features and adaptations such as telepresence (remotely accessing distant but real environments). Using telepresence techniques, engineers and doctors have the potential of serving a global audience without the time and trouble of traveling across nations.
Application and Relevance of VR for Young People
VR is a relatively new medium of human-computer interaction. Interlinked computers use visual and auditory stimuli to create a three-dimensional environment in which the user is immersed. Instead of seeing the real world, the user interacts with this surrogate environment. As the user's level of immersion increases, the user feels more like a part of that environment.
Widespread applications of VR for children and adolescents include entertainment (VR games that simulate space-flight adventures and dragon fights), education (a VR movie on the “Seven Wonders of the Ancient World”), medical treatment (therapeutic VR games designed to distract young people from pain), and other uses (such as VR aerospace simulators that impart the virtual experience of driving or flying). VR denotes a simulated environment in which the user interacts with a series of sensors and sophisticated output devices. Modern VR technology has widespread use in games, amusement parks, performing arts, show business, and other forms of entertainment; it requires application of the British poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge's concept of “willing suspension of disbelief.”
In medical settings, VR provides children and adolescents with beneficial effects such as VR distraction, which relieves anxiety associated with chemotherapy among young people; VR diversion, which reduces distress about invasive medical procedures; and immersive VR, which can improve the attention span of children and adolescents with behavioral problems and help them learn to focus on tasks. The theoretical principle underlying such VR applications is related to diverting attention away from a noxious stimulus and focusing instead on a more pleasant environment. VR has myriad applications in different fields, notably edu-tainment, engineering, design, marketing, communication, biotechnology, and even military training.
Conceptual Dimensions of Modern VR
The conceptual origins of the modern VR can be attributed to the vision outlined in computer scientist Ivan Sutherland's 1965 paper, The Ultimate Display. VR researcher Frederick P. Brooks, Jr. (1999) paraphrased Sutherland's vision in these words:
Don't think of that thing as a screen, think of it as a window, a window through which one looks into a virtual world. The challenge to computer graphics is to make that virtual world look real, sound real, move and respond to interaction in real time, and even feel real. (p.
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