So, I think the whole domain of 2D user interfaces and 2D design is really well understood, but 3D design or design for virtual reality is not very well understood. So, a very basic thing is, 'How do I get from A to B? How do I move through the environment?' So, people say, 'Okay, it's very easy; you get the controller and you press a button on the controller and it moves you forward in the direction you're pointing or the direction you're looking.'
But if you do that, you get sick. So, okay – then you need a treadmill so that you really walk; the treadmill is expensive and it takes a lot of space and just people are not going to do it. And then there's another idea about, for walking – walking in place. So, you simulate walking by just walking in place, the system recognizes that, and it moves you in the direction. That's better, certainly better than pointing and clicking.
... There's another paradigm, where you just point at an area, you click, and you are there, but then you lose complete orientation about where you are in the environment. So, a very basic thing like moving through an environment, a virtual environment which is bigger than the real space you're in, where you can't really walk (inaudible) this is unsolved; it's still there after 30 years. So, the most important thing in terms of design is virtual reality, as I said,
is this new media and our natural inclination is to use it to simulate things that happen in the real world. And that's important. Like if you're learning to use some complex machinery which is dangerous, learn it first of all in virtual reality – like with flight simulators, for example – and then you do it in physical reality. ... That's important, but virtual reality is much more than that. This is an example of something you can't really do in physical reality;
you can only really do it in virtual reality. And this has always been my interest in virtual reality, which is how you can use it to push the boundaries and get experiences that you just can't have in physical reality but which nevertheless have a positive outcome. Many examples have shown that when you change the body, you also change the mind. So, one example is racial bias. When you're embodied in the body of a minority group or a discriminated-against group,
it reduces your bias against that group; it can change how you move; it can be used to reduce pain; it can induce cognitive changes – if you get embodied in a body that looks like Einstein, then you do better on a cognitive test, and we've even used it in a context of fear of death. So, the first main example I want to talk about is using this idea of embodiment for self-counseling.
So, as I said, this is about narrative. This is a narrative with yourself. Let me explain how it works. So, it's based on something called *Solomon's paradox* from social psychology, where it's known that we're much better at giving advice to a friend than we are to ourselves. But suppose you could objectify the you that you talk to when you talk with yourself on the inside. So, you can make it as if your self is the friend – the other person. So, maybe talking with yourself as if with another person might be helpful for personal problem solving.
So, here's how it works: We take the person, we scan them, and we make a virtual body that looks like them – we put them in virtual reality; so, if he looks in the mirror in virtual reality, he'll see a replica of his own body. But also in virtual reality we can embody you as anybody – in particular, with *first-person perspective* – you look down; you see the body – and *real-time motion capture* – you move and the body moves with you.
We can embody you as anybody – in this particular case, as Sigmund Freud. So, what happens is that first of all you are as yourself and you explain a problem to Sigmund Freud. Then you become Sigmund Freud; you're in his body, and you see and hear yourself explain the problem – now as Sigmund Freud, remember, change the body, change the mind, and also seeing yourself from the outside as a friend, you can maybe come up with some ideas to help this person – you – with the problem.
So, embodied as Freud, you could talk back to yourself, and this process keeps changing back and forward until you've reached a resolution. So, basically you're having a conversation with yourself. A journalist from The New Yorker came and he tried this, and he wrote something very interesting afterwards. He spoke with Freud about a problem he had about guilt that he writes about in this article – a guilt to do with his mother being in
a care home, and he said, 'Soon I fell into a rhythm. Freud and I talked for about 20 minutes.' Of course, it's himself talking. 'He was insightful. He said many things I'd never said to myself in ordinary life. When I took off the headset, I was moved. I wanted to tell myself, "Good talk." From his perspective, I'd seemed different, sadder, more ordinary and comprehensible. I told myself to remember that version of me.' In VR, we're at that stage where the paradigms for how to do things
and operate in VR is still not invented, other than, 'Oh, let's put up a menu.' This is the wrong way to go. So, for designers interested in this field, it's wide open I think.