Harris, 'PSYCHODYNAMIC EFFECTS OF VIRTUAL REALITY', Arachnet Electronic Journal on Virtual Culture v2n01 (February 28, 1994) URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/aejvc/aejvc-v2n01-harris-psychodynamic The Arachnet Electronic Journal on Virtual Culture __________________________________________________________________ ISSN 1068-5723 February 28, 1994 Volume 2 Issue 1 HARRIS V2N1 THE PSYCHODYNAMIC EFFECTS OF VIRTUAL REALITY Leslie D. Harris Susquehanna University lharris@einstein.susqu.edu ABSTRACT This article explores the potential effects of virtual reality on our subsequent experiences of the world. If, as Daniel Dennet, Jerome Bruner, and others have argued, our past experiences in- fluence subsequent perceptions of the world, then VR experiences can have a profound effect on our conscious beings. Those expe- riences can become part of a perceptual and an emotional back- ground that changes the way we see things. At its best, virtual reality can allow us to transcend our limitations, to expand our emotional lives. At its worst, VR can become a form of torture, in which we subject ourselves to traumatic experiences that scar our emotional and perceptual lives. [1] For those of us who spend too much time playing computer games, the following is a common experience. Instead of grading student essays or writing that important article, we spend the late afternoon staring at the computer screen, trying to master our favorite driving game. We gently pull at the joy stick to make the virtual car gracefully turn those corners, we click on buttons to change gears, and we press various keys to accelerate and decelerate. Because we're still learning the various courses, we turn on the "indestructible" button so that crashes do not disable our virtual automobile. As we play the game more frequently, we become accustomed to how the road appears to approach us on the screen, how the joystick allows us to negotiate the turns, and (if others are equally bad computer drivers), how the windshield temporarily appears when we have smashed into the guard rail. Of course, those crashes cause no permanent damage to the virtual car; under the File menu awaits the next run at Le Mans, or Monte Carlo, or wherever we wish to test our computer driving skill (or lack of skill). [2] Having wasted inordinate amounts of time, we leave the office to drive home. Something, however, is wrong. The actual car has a steering wheel, not a joystick; we need to use our feet to control the speed, and the road approaches us differently as we drive. We feel disoriented, as if needing to relearn the experience of driving an actual automobile. We also cannot drive with the same reckless abandon--crashes have real (and extremely expensive) consequences. They can even be fatal. [3] What I have described above is what I would call the "reality-making" effect of our experiences. What we perceive as real depends upon our past experiences, and our reactions to the world are influenced by those experiences. When we learned to drive a car, for example, we gained an internalized sense of driving. Each time we drove, our "driving script" (as artificial intelligence theorists would call it) became more and more detailed, and we needed to attend less and less to the specific details of the process. We could think about that stack of papers or that important article, even while we were changing lanes, making turns, or pulling into the driveway. Each new experience of driving expanded upon and reinforced the past "script," and that script came into play each time we drove, governing how we reacted to the world. [4] Playing the computer driving game rewrites our "driving script." The more time we spend playing, the more significant the rewriting. We begin to take the virtual world as normal (as actual)--the way the road appears on the screen, the way the joystick controls the "car," and so on. Reconfronting the actual world reveals the extent of the rewriting. We feel momentarily disoriented because the virtual and actual scripts conflict. We are no longer sure what is "real," and we must allow our new experiences to write over the changes that the computer game inscribed. The reality re-making effect of these driving games should make us wonder, therefore, about the psychological effects of the more vivid form of computer- simulation known as "virtual reality," in which the virtual world becomes three-dimensional and our participation becomes more direct. [5] Jerome Bruner calls our internal scripts of the world (like the "driving script" I describe above) "neural 'models of the world' stored in the brain" (Bruner 46). According to Bruner, the common psychological reaction of surprise indicates "a response to violated presupposition" (Bruner 46). We presuppose that the world will be a certain way based on our past experiences of the world, and when something diverts from the typical (i.e., from our internalized "models of the world"), we are surprised and must somehow account for the discrepancy. As surprise reveals, we compare each new experience with what we have experienced in the past; those past experiences make up a series of "possible worlds" against which we view the actual world. With more typical experiences, we fit the new into the old. As Bruner puts it, "what human perceivers do is to take whatever scraps they can extract from the stimulus input, and if these conform to expectancy, to read the rest from the model [of the world] in their head" (Bruner [1986], 47). In other words, perception is not a purely immediate response to neutral visual (or other sensory) stimuli. Perception involves a more complex process of "world making" (Bruner 96)--of constructing a unified conception of the world based on the new and the old. [6] In _Consciousness Explained_, Daniel Dennett describes this process in more detail. He summarizes what he calls "the 'analysis-by-synthesis' model of perception" (12): the tasks of perception are completed--objects are identified, recognized, categorized--by generate-and- test cycles. In such a cycle, one's current expectations and interests shape hypotheses for one's perceptual systems to confirm or disconfirm, and a rapid sequence of such hypothesis generations and confirmations produces the ultimate product, the ongoing, updated 'model' of the world of the perceiver. (12). Speech perception in our native language (or in a foreign language that we understand) provides an illuminating example of the process Dennett describes above. When we (English- speakers) perceive speech in English, we conceptualize the sensory input _as_ speech in English. That is, "we have a clear sense of boundaries between words . . . based on the grammatical structure of the language, not on the physical structure of the acoustic wave" (Dennett 51-52). In contrast, "we hear speech in foreign languages [that is, in those languages we don't understand] as a jumbled, unsegmented rush of sounds" (Dennett 51). Before we knew English (that is, when we were infants), we did not perceive sounds spoken in English as _words_ (or as meaningful speech acts); we heard only the sounds. Once we learn the language, however, our "Background" (Searle 143) knowledge of English forms part of the "expectations" Dennett describes above. We expect to hear words in a proper syntactic order, and so we use the "model in our head" of English (that is, our internalized understanding of the rules of English grammar and syntax) in the process of perceiving and making sense of what we hear. Perception is thus governed by expectation, by knowledge of the world, and by past experience, as well as by the "raw data" perceived. It involves an intermingling of input and interpretation, as we use various mental faculties to construct what Dennett calls in the passage above "the ongoing, updated 'model' of the world of the perceiver." [5] In advancing his own theory of consciousness, Dennett discusses various instances of misperception in which Background knowledge and expectation cause us to misinterpret the events perceived. One example that he discusses in detail is "Koler's color phi phenomenon" (120). The original _phi_ phenomenon involved two adjacent spots lit successively, giving rise to an illusion of motion. As Dennett explains, "if two or more small spots separated by as much as 4 degrees of visual angle are briefly lit in rapid succession, a single spot seems to move back and forth" (114). This phi phenomenon (utilized by motion pictures and by rapidly flashing cards that also give the illusion of motion) suggests that we perceive motion based on a change in position. The same object (or what we think is the same object) appears to consciousness in one position and then in a slightly different position, and by combining the various "drafts" of the world, we perceive an object that moved from one position to the other, traversing the distance in between. [6] According to Dennett, this interpretation doesn't involve an "Orwellian revision" (118) of the data, in which we perceive as discrete events "the spot at point A" and then "the spot at point B" and then rewrite the experience as motion (as Orwell's main character in _1984_ rewrote history). Because of the "temporal smear" of the point of view of the subject" (136) and "spatial smearing" (152) of events as they are processed in the brain, we have a "stream" (135) of mental contents that can influence behavior, be inscribed in memory, and be reported in speech acts (or in button-pushings as versions of speech acts). We assert that we saw a spot moving because (in making the assertion), we probe into the complex, multi-layered stream of consciousness, eliciting a provisional "final draft" of the world. That "final draft" depends not only on the sensory input (the two lighted spots), but also upon our expectations and understanding of the world. We tend to perceive the "normal case"--the one that most closely matches our understanding of the way things work in the world. [7] The "color phi phenomenon" involves an even greater misinterpretation of the "raw data." According to Dennett, during an experiment conducted by Paul Kolers and Michael von Grnau, "Two different colored spots were lit for 150msec each (with a 50msec interval); the first spot seemed to begin moving and then change color abruptly _in the middle of its illusory passage_ toward the second location" (114). Dennett continues, "the illusory content, _red-switching-to-green-in- midcourse_, cannot be created until _after_ some identification of the second, green spot occurs in the brain" (115). In other words, we couldn't have anticipated that the color would change to green. We must have identified the new color before perceiving the illusory event of a red spot changing to green midway in its supposed passage. [8] As with the simple phi phenomenon, Dennett proposes a "multiple drafts" theory of consciousness to explain these "misperceptions." The events that we perceive don't run in some "Cartesian theater" in the mind, in which the time of presentation to consciousness (the running of the supposed film-like representation of the world) mirrors the occurrence of the events. The "color phi phenomenon" belies this interpretation of consciousness, since the spot never really moved, and it certainly didn't change color at an apparent midpoint between the two illuminations. That apparent change in color at the midpoint of the supposed path must derive from an interpretive synthesis of what Dennett calls the various "drafts" of the world present to consciousness, a synthesis generated by the probe of the subject's responding to the investigators' questions. One "draft" of the world (involving, actually, multiple drafts, since various regions and capabilities of the brain are involved) indicates the spot in the first posi- tion with the first color, and another group of drafts indicate the spot in the new position with the new color. In reporting our consciousness of the event (or in inscribing the event in memory), we combine these multifarious drafts in a kind of editing process, using our Background knowledge of the world as an element of the ultimate version. We thus perceive (and report) the phenomenon _as_ a spot moving and changing color midway, even though technically that is not what occurred. Dennett asserts, "There is no reality of conscious experience independent of the effects of various vehicles of content on subsequent action (and hence, of course, on memory)" (132). As the "color phi phenomenon" reveals, one important such "vehicle of content" in perceptual experiences is our understanding of the way the world works, an understanding that is based on our earlier experiences of that world. [9] Those experiences that influence how we perceive and react to current reality do not have to be of "actual" events. In _Physics and Beyond_, Werner Heisenberg describes a walking tour through Denmark with the famous Danish physicist, Niels Bohr. Upon reaching Kronborg castle, Bohr made the following comment: Isn't it strange how this castle changes as soon as one imagines that Hamlet lived here? As scientists we believe that a castle consists only of stones, and [we] admire the way the architect put them together. The stone, the green roof with its patina, the wood carvings in the church, constitute the whole castle. None of this should be changed by the fact that Hamlet lived here, and yet it is changed completely. Suddenly the walls and the ramparts speak a different language. The courtyard becomes an entire world, a dark corner reminds us of the darkness in the human soul, we hear Hamlet's "To be or not to be." . . .(Heisenberg 51) When we perceive Kronborg Castle with the presumption that "Hamlet lived here" (that is, when we perceive the castle _as_ Hamlet's castle), the nature of the perceptual experience changes, even though nothing of the "raw data" (the stones, the roof, the carvings, etc.) has changed. These emotional overtones are not added to the "raw" perception; they are part of the new experience, one to which our attitudes about _Shakespeare's_ Hamlet (and not about the historical Hamlet) contribute. They are like the "sensuous properties" (Dennett 51) that accompany speech, those properties of intonation (as well as the emotional colorings of accent and style) that influence the meaning of the utterance and that are therefore part of the utterance. Bohr's observation suggests that along with memory and our Background presuppositions about how the world works, fiction is one of those "vehicles of content" that influence how we perceive the world. In other words, our experiences that occur while we read fiction can become inherent parts of our later experiences of the world. [10] Our emotional reactions to literature attest to the extraordinary power of virtual worlds. As David Lewis reveals, literary works create virtual (i.e., possible) worlds -- worlds (in the instance of narrative fiction) "in which the fiction is told . . . as known fact" (Lewis [1983] 266). Those possible worlds create the "_illusion of life_" --we experience them as if they were real, because (despite the changes from the real that make them fiction and not fact), they involve the forces, laws, and human interactions that are the stuff of real life. This "illusion of life" is strongest in drama, when the actions are presented in real time before our eyes. We see an actor go through the motions of stabbing another with a rapier, and we experience Hamlet being fatally stabbed by Laertes. We hear a speech being delivered by an actor, yet we also experience Horatio's final good-bye to Hamlet, upon the latter's death. "Good night, sweet Prince, / And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest" (V.ii.364-65), Horatio says, and we cry true tears as we mourn the loss of a noble courtier. [11] Like the experience of drama and of literature in general, experiences of virtual reality _are_ actual, in that they repli- cate the way we perceive reality, and they elicit true emotional responses. They resemble drama ("fictional" actions presented in real time), but with virtual reality _we_ become part of the drama; we participate in the action. The "virtual" of "virtual reality" denotes "as if actual." VR involves a computer- generated three-dimensional environment that attempts to approach actual experience as much as possible (the Enterprise's "Holo-Deck" being the epitome of the virtual world). In comparing VR technology to a flight simulator, Howard Rheingold states: Virtual reality is also a simulator, but instead of looking at a flat, two-dimensional screen and operating a joystick, the person who experiences VR is surrounded by a three-dimensional computer-generated repesentation, and is able to move around in the virtual world and see it from different angles, to reach into it, grab it, and reshape it. (Rheingold 17) VR provides the computer equivalent of what linguists call a "possible world"--a world "that resembles our actual state of affairs as much as" (Lewis [1973] 1) the computer hardware and software (and the specific program) allow. Like fiction, that environment can incorporate changes from the actual--allowing the existence of dragons, dinosaurs, or various mythical creatures. However, the experiencing of the environment must mimic the actual in order to be "virtual"; in other words (as philosophers would put it), all other things must be equal. We must perceive the virtual world as we do the real world (involving a three-dimensional sense of perspective and depth, with sensory inputs apparently bombarding us from all sides), or it will not have the crucial characteristic of appearing real--of being a virtual reality environment. [12] Just as attending a drama (or reading a novel) can transform us, so experiences of virtual reality can have benefi- cial or deleterious consequences. In the _Star Trek: The Next Generation_ episode in which Captain Picard falls in love, for example, the Captain's playing the Ressiccan flute with his fellow officer (at the place where the Jeffries tubes join) contributes to his falling in love (and to his expressing that love physically). Indeed, the physical intimacy interrupts the playing and can be seen as a direct outgrowth of that playing. As Picard later explains, his music carries a tremendous emo- tional charge. That music is linked to his virtual experience "on" Catanh (in which he became the inhabitant Caiman), when he "learned" to play the flute. By discussing "my music," in fact (as he does in the later episode), he repeats the words of his "son," Bataille (named after his close friend), a son who existed in the virtual world. [13] Picard's experience on Catanh falls somewhere between a dream and computer-generated virtual reality. Like a dream, the actual Captain Picard remains prone and immobile during his extended "life" on Catanh. He is thus not actually moving, even when he experiences motion in his virtual life on Catanh. Also like a dream (or perhaps more like a play or novel), the time sequence is not continuous; there are several gaps during which the story jumps ahead in time. Unlike a dream, however, the events proceed in a regular fashion, without contradiction or violation of temporal logic. Like computer-generated virtual reality, on the other hand, the probe that causes Picard to "live" a full adult life on Catanh could be (and probably is) an instantiation of a computer program. The designers of the probe could possibly have anticipated some of the reactions of the chosen subject, but not all the reactions. The probe must somehow interact with the mind (and therefore the personality) of Captain Picard; it must be flexible in order to produce the complex experience of life on Catanh. And that is indeed what Picard experiences: a full, virtual-reality "life" on Catanh. [14] What is crucial about Picard's experience of super- virtual reality ("super" because it involves brain stimulation only, bypassing the need for input from external senses) is the transformative effect of that experience. Picard gets to "live" the life that he chose to forgo when he decided on a career in Star Fleet. He experiences love, marriage, a longterm relations- hip, fatherhood, and old age. He develops friendships and ties to the community in ways that would not have been possible in his "actual" life on the Enterprise, in which his role as Captain distances him from his crew. He can eventually fall in love with a fellow crew member in his "real life" because he experienced the feelings of love, commitment, and intimacy "on" Catanh. He has developed a greater emotional depth as a result of his virtual life, a depth that has become intertwined with his music and that has informed his "actual" existence, allowing him to live a fuller life on the Enterprise. [15] Like Picard's super-virtual reality, our computer- generated virtual reality can allow us to experience aspects of life that are not open to us in our daily existence. Most of us are not futuristic warriors battling villains or monsters. In VR, we can experience what it would be like to be such a warrior, without actually putting our lives at risk. Similarly, most pilots won't fly under the conditions that can be presented in a flight simulator. Yet practicing to fly under those conditions helps the pilot experience the anxiety and fear that would ac- company such dangerous flights, as he or she learns to maneuver the virtual plane. Should a dangerous situation arise during an actual flight, the pilot can react with more ease and confidence, since the earlier virtual experience helped prepare him/her for the actual experience of flight under adverse conditions. Al- though the two-dimensional driving game warns us about altering the conditions so that they divert too far from the real (since virtual indestructibility can lead to actual recklessness), the experience of transcending our limitations can enrich us as people, just as they do for Jean-Luc Picard. They can help us develop elements of our personality not necessarily available to us in our everyday lives. [16] Yet we have given only half the picture. With both Catanh and the flight simulator, we are assuming the benevolence of the "programmers"--that is, of those who design the virtual world and determine how it will react to the actions of the subject. The flight simulator is intended to train future pilots; the inhabitants of Catanh wanted to give their chosen subject a full experience of life on the planet, so that he (Picard, in the episode) could describe that life to others. We cannot assume, however, the benevolence of the creators of VR. As we shall see, flight simulators can be programmed with a bias, and virtual experiences can become means of torture. [17] In _Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan_, the movie begins with what appears to be a battle scene between the Enterprise (with a Vulcan female as captain) and the Romulans. Hopelessly outnumbered, the inexperienced Vulcan "captain" loses the battle, as several characters appear to be killed. We learn immediately afterward that this battle was a computer simulation of combat (that is, virtual combat), and that no one was truly killed. Furthermore, the program was designed with a bias: whoever commands the ship enters an "impossible situation," in which defeat is inevitable (unless, like the young James T. Kirk, one reprograms the simulator). The deceit is justified as being beneficial to the psychological health of the cadet. Despite the humiliation of the defeat, Admiral Kirk explains, losing a virtual battle forces the ensign-in-training to face his or her mortality--to experience death (as Kirk sup- posedly never has--and doesn't appear to have suffered as a result). Such a biased simulation borders on manipulation. Al- though the cadet chose to participate in the exercise, he/she does not know of its true nature beforehand. The paternalistic Academy has determined that the experience is beneficial, and they therefore subject their cadets to it (like hazing in a fra- ternity, but not so extreme). [18] Admittedly, the manipulation and deceit involved are minimal. Unless we are James T. Kirk, we cannot win every battle, and we all must eventually die. The experience is a futuristic version of memento mori--a remembrance that each of us must die. The humbling experience leads not to the recklessness of the virtually indestructible computer driver, but to the carefulness (one hopes) of a Star Fleet captain who is responsible for the lives of his or her crew. [19] This benign manipulation reveals, however, that the possibility for manipulation in virtual reality is real. The vir- tual world results from computer simulation; a human being (or more likely teams of human beings) programmed what the participant will see and experience. As with other products of human technological invention, virtual reality can be used for benevolent or malevolent ends, depending on the motivation of the programmers and of those who use the technology for their own ends. They may have more sinister motives that work against the interests of the participants. In the original Star Trek pilot episode ("The Menagerie," incorporated in the regular series as "The Cage"), for example, the inhabitants of Talos 4 subject Captain Pike to various virtual experiences as a form of conditioning. If he "behaved"--that is, if he acted according to the wishes of his captors--he would be rewarded with a pleasant experience, such as a picnic with horses and with his beautiful companion, Vera. If he "misbehaved" (acted against the wishes of his captors), he was punished with unpleasant experiences-- with deadly battles and with sensations of pain. The goal of those on Talos 4 was to breed a race of human captives who would experience the strong emotions that they could no longer feel, since they themselves spent too much time engaged in mental pursuits. They needed Pike to want to remain with his female companion if they were to be successful. That is, they wanted him to fall in love, choosing to live the rest of his life in virtual rather than actual reality, feeling true pleasure and pain (despite his virtual life), and giving birth to real off- spring. As Vera correctly warns Captain Pike, the pain and pleasure resulting from virtual experiences are real, even if the experiences themselves are illusory. [20] _Star Trek: The Next Generation_ also explores the issue of manipulation through a modified form of virtual reality. In the episode in which Jordi LaForge is captured by the Romulans, he is subjected to experiences that he perceives as real, because his brain is stimulated in exactly the same way as it would be if he were having true perceptions of the world. Although his experience thus outwardly resembles the "super-virtual reality" that Captain Picard experienced, the motives of Jordi's captors are much more sinister than those of the inhabitants of Catanh. The Romulans attempt to overwrite Jordi's personality--to turn him into a killer who will do their bidding. They partially succeed, in that he attempts to commit murder, and he must be "deprogrammed" at the end to help him recover what happened and heal his psychological scars. [21] Jordi's experience is, of course, a fiction. "Super-virtual reality" doesn't exist, and Dennett argues that such a rich replication of the world (allowed to Captain Picard but not actually to Jordi) is impossible. Dennett considers in detail what would be involved if "evil scientists" attempted to actual- ize the famous "brain in the vat" (3) thought experiment (by placing a subject's brain in a vat and stimulating it so that the subject thinks that he/she is still interacting in the world--an experience somewhat similar to Picard's and La Forge's). Accord- ing to Dennett, "our evil scientists will be swamped by _combinatorial explosion_ as soon as they give you [the subject] any genuine exploratory powers in this imaginary world" (5). There will be "too many possibilities to store" (5), too many events and perspectives of the world to anticipate and to account for. What both _Next Generation_ episodes reveal, however, is that virtual experiences can become part of our emotional Background. The events simulated are fictional; the VR monsters don't exist in the real world, although they do "exist" in the possible world created by the programmer. Despite the illusory nature of the virtual world, however, the emotions we experience while participating in VR are real. We experience true fear or exhilaration, more intensely than we do when we are viewing a gripping movie or reading an engrossing novel, because with VR we are directly involved. And as the two _Next Generation_ episodes reveal, these experiences can influence our future "world-making" (to use Bruner's term), becoming "vehicles of content" (Dennett 132) that contribute to our current perceptions. If how we presently experience the world is partly determined by how we have experienced the world in the past, we must be very careful when we choose to "live" in worlds created by others, for these virtual-reality experiences also become part of our past life. [22] An extreme form of this world-rewriting effect of past experiences is the psychological condition known as Post- Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). War veterans, child-abuse victims, and others who "have been exposed to traumatic situations" (Brende 79) reexperience those situations even when removed from the source of stress. They adapt to the original highly dangerous environment, and they subsequently perceive and react to the world as if it contained similar dangers. They have "learn[ed] what they live[d]." The American Psychiatric Association describes the disorder as follows: The essential feature is the development of characteristic symptoms following a psychologically traumatic event that is generally outside the range of usual human experience. The characteristic symptoms involve reexperiencing the traumatic event; numbing of responsiveness to, or reduced involvement with, the external world; and a variety of autonomic dysphoric, or cognitive symptoms. ... Reexperiencing of the trauma [is] evidenced by at least one of the following: 1) recurrent and intrusive recollections of the event 2) recurrent dreams of the event 3) sudden acting or feeling as if the traumatic event were reoccurring, because of an association with an environmental or ideational stimulus. (236, 238) Two aspects of the American Psychiatric Association's description are crucial. The first is the cause of PTSD: "a psychologically traumatic event that is generally outside the range of usual human experience" (236). Luckily, few of us have the misfortune of fighting in a war. However, virtual reality increases the ease of experiencing events "outside the range of usual human experience," since the programmer is limited only by his/her ability to make the events appear real. If those events are "psychologically traumatic" ones, then virtual reality can become not necessarily a form of recreation, but a means of fostering Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. [23] Also crucial is the American Psychiatric Association's description of the "Reexperiencing of the trauma," which involves the "sudden acting or feeling as if the traumatic event were reoccurring, because of an association with an environmental or ideational stimulus" (238). In other words, like Proust's experience with "la madeleine" in _A la Recherche du Temps Perdu_, some event or "stimulus" in the present triggers a reexperiencing of the past. The sufferer of PTSD mistakenly perceives the current situation as extremely dangerous, because (to use Dennett's term), the past memory has become a dominant "vehicle of content" contributing to the consciousness of present reality. As one Vietnam veteran describes it: "'When I got home from 'Nam, I'd walk down to the river on our land and the water and the thick bushes made me think I was back in 'Nam. I had to take a gun with me 'cause I'd see the VC and start firing'" (Brende 80). Another veteran states: "'For the first two years after I returned from Vietnam, if I heard a helicopter overhead, I'd hit the ground and take cover immediately'" (Brende 82). These veterans resemble the computer-driving-game enthusiast, but with much more intense reactions; their scripts or "neural 'models of the world' stored in the brain" (Bruner 46) were rewritten by their war-time events, and these scripts contribute to how they currently perceive the world. The "expectations" fueling their "generate- and-test cycles" (Dennett 12) are governed by their past life, and so ostensibly harmless events or objects (rivers and bushes or helicopters) are perceived as signs of danger. [24] Repeated traumatic experiences of warfare are much more extreme than an afternoon spent playing "Dactyl Nightmare" (a virtual reality game). However, experiences that are much less severe than the trauma of war have similar (although less pronounced) effects. As Brende and Parson explain: While such symptoms are common in war veterans, they also occur in others who have been exposed to traumatic situations. Dr. [Mardi J.] Horowitz undertook an interesting experiment testing "normal people" watching disturbing movies, and found that they too, for a period after, were plagued by intrusive images and memories. (79-80) In Horowitz's actual experiment, "college students and enlisted men in military service" (Horowitz 64) were shown various silent films of six to nine minutes in length. The films were chosen with different stressful contents: a film called "It Didn't Have to Happen" that showed "woodshop accidents" (Horowitz 64), a documentary film called _John_ that shows the lapse into "lethargy, despair and withdrawal" of "an eighteen-month-old boy whose mother has just died" and who is placed in a "foundling home" (Horowitz 71), an erotic film depicting "a loving heterosexual couple enjoying foreplay and intercourse" (Horowitz 71)--"stressful because of the absence of immediate potential for reduction and arousal" (Horowitz 72)--and finally a "neutral contrast film" called "The Runner," showing a man "running through the countryside meeting people along the way" (Horowitz 64). After viewing these films, subjects were asked in two different segments to perform a "signal detection task" (Horowitz 64) that, although boring, "demanded continuous attention" (Horowitz 65) to various tones. After each segment, subjects reported their "mental contents, defined as 'any thoughts, feelings, visual images, other images, observations, . . . memories, or anything else that occurs in the mind'" (Horowitz 65). According to Horowitz's findings, those subjects who viewed the stressful films reported "_more intrusive thoughts, more repetitions of film contents, and more visual images_" (Horowitz 64) than those who viewed the neutral film. The subjects' emotional states were also affected by the films. As Horowitz reports it, "Pleasantness, interest and happiness were greatest after the erotic film. Sadness and anger were greatest after the separation film. Contempt was rated equally high for the bodily injury and separation films. Fear, nervousness, physical sensations, pain and disgust were greatest after the bodily injury film" (73-75). [25] These films were only six- to nine-minute silent films. Despite their short duration, they had noticeable affects on the emotional states of the subjects, as well as on the attentiveness that the subjects brought to the signal-detection task. That is, the films changed (temporarily) how the subjects experienced the world. These results suggest the even more pronounced effects of full-length films and especially of virtual reality experi- ences. Those of use who have seen horror movies (after giving up on computer driving games) or those of us whose friends attend such movies know the effects. Afterwards, we perceive the world as a much more threatening place. Previously benign dark corners become potential hiding places for deadly creatures. People walking behind us become potential members of the "living dead," ready to tear us to bits. In short, our newly aroused anxieties contribute to how we perceive and experience the world around us. [26] Virtual reality would have a greater effect. In film (as in drama), we are mere audience members, vicariously experiencing the events through identifications with the characters. With virtual reality, on the other hand, we become inhabitants of the virtual world--the film reality becomes our reality, our temporary world. As we do with films, therefore, we must exercise our freedom to choose the virtual world in which we temporarily inhabit; we must have knowledge of that world before we choose to exist in it. We must also recognize that VR programmers fall somewhere between Descartes' "evil genius," bent on deceiving him, and God, who insures that what he believes really exists. Such programmers can help us develop as human beings, or they can subject us to events that permanently change our emotional landscapes. WORKS CITED American Psychiatric Association. _Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-III_. Third Edition. Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Association, 1980. Brende, Joel Osler, and Parson, Erwin Randolph. _Vietnam Veterans: The Road to Recovery_. New York, Plenum Press, 1985. Bruner, Jerome. _Actual Minds, Possible Worlds_. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1986. Dennett, Daniel C. _Consciousness Explained_. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1991. Heisenberg, Werner. _Physics and Beyond: Encounters and Conversations_. Trans. Arnold J. Pomerans. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc., 1971. Horowitz, Mardi Jon. _Stress Response Syndromes_. New York: Jason Aronson, Inc., 1976. Lewis, David. _Counterfactuals_. Oxford: Basil Blackwell & Mott Limited, 1973. Lewis, David. _Philosophical Papers_. Vol. I. New York: Oxford University Press, 1983. Mills, Gordon. _Hamlet's Castle: The Study of Literature as a Social Experience_. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1976. Rheingold, Howard. _Virtual Reality_. New York: Summit Books, 1991. Searle, John R. _Intentionality: An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind_. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. Shakespeare, William. _Hamlet_. ed. Harold Jenkins. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd, 1982. _____ Articles and Sections of this issue of the _Electronic Journal on Virtual Culture_ may be retrieved via anonymous ftp to byrd.mu.wvnet.edu or via e-mail message addressed to LISTSERV@KENTVM or LISTSERV@KENTVM.KENT.EDU (instructions below) Papers may be submitted at anytime by email or send/file to: Ermel Stepp - Editor-in-Chief, _Electronic Journal on Virtual Culture_ M034050@MARSHALL.WVNET.EDU _________________________________ *Copyright Declaration* Copyright of articles published by Electronic Journal on Virtual Culture is held by the author of a given article. If an article is re-published elsewhere it must include a statement that it was originally published by Electronic Journal on Virtual Culture. The EJVC Editors reserve the right to maintain permanent archival copies of all submissions and to provide print copies to appropriate indexing services for for indexing and microforming. _________________________________ _________________________________ _THE ELECTRONIC JOURNAL ON VIRTUAL CULTURE_ ISSN 1068-5327 Ermel Stepp, Marshall University, Editor-in-Chief M034050@Marshall.wvnet.edu Diane (Di) Kovacs, Kent State University, Co-Editor DKOVACS@Kentvm.Kent.edu ____________________________ GOPHER Instructions ____________________________ GOPHER to gopher.cic.net 70 ____________________________ Anonymous FTP Instructions ____________________________ ftp byrd.mu.wvnet.edu login anonymous password: users' electronic address cd /pub/ejvc type EJVC.INDEX.FTP get filename (where filename = exact name of file in INDEX) quit LISTSERV Retrieval Instructions _______________________________ Send e-mail addressed to LISTSERV@KENTVM (Bitnet) or LISTSERV@KENTVM.KENT.EDU Leave the subject line empty. The message must read: GET EJVCV2N1 CONTENTS Use this file to identify particular articles or sections then send e-mail to LISTSERV@KENTVM or LISTSERV@KENTVM.KENT.EDU with the command: GET where is the name of the article or section (e.g., author name) and is the V#N# of that issue of EJVC