Working in Movement

You're probably reading this post on a computer screen, and you probably found it by using your keyboard or mouse. We see and touch lots of stuff like this everyday. For the most part, this lets us get around easily and manipulate the physical world.

But what if you suddenly find yourself in an environment that doesn't provide much tactile feedback? Or your vision doesn't work like it does normally? What could you rely on to get you around and let you handle things?

These are the kinds of problems that you might encounter in a virtual world, one that draws its existence from the silicon and electricity inside a computer or network of computers. Virtual environments offer lots of promise for all sorts of things. The one that I like most is the ability to train in a low risk situation, one that starts the learner on the road of skill ownership. For example, a medical student or resident could perform virtual laporascopic surgery many times before the real event. (And of course playing video games might help, too.)

One interesting solution to the problem is to use something you already have: proprioception, or the ability to feel what you're doing as you're doing it. This idea is put forth in the PDF paper:Moving Cows In Space: Exploiting Proprioception As A Framework For Virtual Environment Interaction

The author writes that finding your way around in a virtual environment can be easier if you use your proprioception. This is done in three ways: direct manipulation, mnemonics, and gestures. The direct manipulation can be done by scaling the visual environment so that objects in the virtual environment appear in the same relative positions to the body as they might in real life. Once properly scaled, the tools used for manipulating the virtual objects, uses the idea of mnemonics. That is, the virtual program places menus, toolbars and the like on the body of the virtual explorer. For example, the tool for starting the process of zooming in on an object might be located on your forehead instead of in a separate menu. Once you've selected the proper tool for manipulating a virtual object, you might use them by performing everyday physical gestures. For example, to zoom in to get a closer look, just learn forward. To zoom out, lean backward.

I'm not at all familiar with virtual environments, so I don't know if any of these ideas have been adopted. But the thinking behind the paper shows yet another example of something written about in Experiencing ourselves plus. Namely, the remarkable plasticity of the human nervous system can easily extend to objects in the environment. As it turns out, those objects can also be computer-generated.