Influence of virtual environments

In a world where science and technology are constantly developing, the evolution of skills and systems capabilities makes our society an environment conducive to the acceptance and democratization of Virtual Reality. Indeed, by enabling users to live the unique experience of dissociation between two worlds, virtual reality techniques produce remarkable effects on human beings. The sensorimotor and cognitive interaction possible with the 3D entities that make up a virtual world generates a feeling of presence of varying degrees, closely linked to the immersive capabilities of the technology. However, when the individual is totally immersed, the confusion of the two worlds can have consequences for physiology, motor actions, mental operations and social relations.

Indeed, the sensation of being in a different place from where our body is located can generate sensorimotor conflicts arising from incompatibility between information perceived in the virtual world and that from the real world. It can also lead to a desynchronization of coordination induced by the presence of delays between the action performed in the real world and the response visible in the virtual world. One of the observable and measurable consequences of this conflict is physiological discomfort. What's more, from a cognitive point of view, the attentional needs required to master the new environment are multiplied tenfold, increasing the cognitive load: attention is divided between processing the information available in the virtual environment and the task at hand. In this way, the virtual world generates a new perceptual space that considerably modifies the coupling between man and his environment. The individual, adaptive by nature, then develops new modes of perception and action, enabling him to appropriate and master this new space. Finally, the feeling of immersion, often representative of the level of appropriation of the virtual environment by the user, can, when total, provoke phenomena of depersonalization or derealization, observed following exposure to a virtual environment.

The concepts of immersion, presence and interaction will first be defined, accompanied by an introduction to the human senses. This knowledge is needed to describe and understand the potential effects of virtual reality on the physiological, sensorimotor, cognitive and social components of the human body once immersed in a virtual environment. Experimental methods for objective and subjective measurements of these effects will also be presented.