When I talk about ‘the immersion in virtual worlds’ it’s not uncommon I get a questioning look. Most of the time I use a simplified example of the Matrix - The Matrix illustrates complete, 100% artificial ‘immersion’ into virtuality. At first I get a smile and something along the lines of: “yes, but we don’t have a matrix yet”. But when I tell them I didn’t mean the story of the movie, but the moment you watch the movie, it usually triggers a sign of recognition. When you get into a movie, you ‘understand’ it, you are at the location of the movie if you manage to focus enough.
This ’suspension of disbelief’ generates the most powerful form of communication: focus. A direct link between sender and receiver. The amount of generated focus through immersion still holds something magical, something like hypnosis. However, with hypnosis the hypnotists always say you need to be open to the hypnosis. The person being hypnotized has to allow the hypnosis to have any effect. At first sight, immersion seems to be just such a thing. You have to want to believe in the environment, place yourself in the story like a dream, a voluntary mental process. To many signals blocking this ’suspension of disbelief’ and the process of immersion fails.
How this might be a wrong perception became clear to me when I red an article on virtual reality in a newspaper (the printed thing). A hospital in Seattle has shown through extensive testing they could reduce the pain of their patients suffering from burns through a virtual world. When undergoing physiotherapy or changing bandages, the pain of the patient is effectively reduced by 35 to 50% through immersion. The displacement into the imaginary realm of virtuality thereby outperforms painkiller drugs. When the patient is faced with terrible plains of their burnt skin getting bandaged they actually don’t feel it as much when inside a virtual world. Mentally the moved to a virtual ream even though every part of their body is screaming the images are false.
The power of immersion is not just for those who want to ‘believe’, or some sort of fictional dramatization. Immersion has an actual, physical effect on us when we move into these virtual spaces. Even when we are well aware of the ‘fakeness’ of virtuality. The mental aspect can go trough the same process. A colleague has done extensive testing in virtual worlds with people with fear impairments. The virtual environments (a house in the test) is used to trigger these fears (irrational fear of sharp objects for instance). The subjects of this therapy is well aware of the ’simulated fake environment when they step into the program, starting the program when looking at the screen. But after the initial minutes their fear becomes real, even though the environment is ‘flat’ (using a screen, not even VR glasses). The user starts to respond, have attacks of fear and genuilly feel uncomfortable.
The immersion in movies or books, or any fictional environment (writers call it their ’secondary world’) has been known for decades. But the interactivity virtual worlds add to the existing media seems to bring a new level (dimension) to the phenomena. Wikipedia notes the writers Ernest Adams, Staffan Björk and Jussi Holopainen see the following types of immersion:
Tactical immersion
Tactical immersion is experienced when performing tactile operations that involve skill. Players feel “in the zone” while perfecting actions that result in success.Strategic immersion
Strategic immersion is more cerebral, and is associated with mental challenge. Chess players experience strategic immersion when choosing a correct solution among a broad array of possibilities.Narrative immersion
Narrative immersion occurs when players become invested in a story, and is similar to what is experienced while reading a book or watching a movie.Spatial immersion
Spatial immersion occurs when a player feels the simulated world is perceptually convincing. The player feels that he or she is really “there” and that a simulated world looks and feels “real”.Psychological immersion
Psychological immersion occurs when a player confuses the game with real life.Sensory immersion
The experience of entering into the three-dimensional environment, and being intellectually stimulated by it. The player experiences a unity of time and space as the player fuses with the image medium, which affects impression and awareness.
Though these descriptions are very limited, and I don’t have the books available, none of these seem to touch on the actual mental and physical effects of immersion. A new level of experience interactive environments can inspire. It’s not very surprising as all these ‘definitions’ are written by game developers, who’d have a different approach to a virtual environment as the medical sector with a strong focus on real, lasting implications for instance. I think the words I am looking for is a genuine experience without the presumption of deliberate suspension of disbelief.
Perhaps I’m just making it needlessly complicated. But after reading that article of the pain reducing power of immersion, and the application in psychological therapy I feel the actual power of immersion and simulated experience is something we’ve only begun to explore.
Posted on: June 10, 2008 | Share on:
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Pavig Lok
said on June 11th
One of the biggest problems with discussing immersion is the many approaches folk take to defining it. Discussion of immersion (versus augmentation usually) in secondlife and other virtual worlds is often railroaded by the “immersionists” and their own take on it. As Mis Tateru points out in this article their style of immersion would be better called “escapism”.
Developers however usually have a much more clearly defined boundary around the term. Narrative immersion where one becomes involved in a plot, environmental immersion where one feels surrounded by the game rather than watching from a distance, and another type of immersion which is used interchangably with the word engagement.
Immersion was particularly important in the development of simulation games (by which i mean driving and flight simulators, not “the sims” etc). Without a feeling of being present within a responsive realtime game world, these games fail. As simulation games were developed it became apparent that a fluid responsive 3d environment was much more important in getting people inside the game than an absolute reproduction of the real world. When that mix is right the player steps through the window of the screen and engages with the environment as if they were actually there. This is about a very sensory and bodily form of suspension of disbelief - a feeling.
The value of immersion in virtual worlds is about that phase transition. Striving for an immersive environment you reach a point where visitors will step through the screen and engage with the world presented directly. Immersiveness is being able to forget that you are looking at a simulation, thus removing the main barrier to you engaging with others who share that environment.
Business understands that shared environments provide productivity gains for their staff - a virtual world should be no different. Many of the business oriented worlds i’ve seen throw away a lot of the “gamer elements” to yaknow sharpen them up and make them more businesslike. Unfortunately it is many of those game like aspects which have been refined over years to assist with engagement, and their loss reduces these business worlds to very clunky conferencing and whiteboarding solutions. They would be better off without VR. If VR is used for engagement it makes no sense to throw out the baby with the bathwater.
Concentrating on immersive elements in virtual worlds provides clear positives, though they are hard to measure except by comparison. Whilst business can justify spending funds to send a team off skydiving, snake wrangling, or to an all you can eat ribs restaurant to get them to gel, they often skimp on engaging aspects of their teleconferencing environments. There are tangible benefits to the intangibles, and immersive and engaging aspects of virtual worlds help keep staff psychologically inside the virtual environment, which is after all where the action is. What’s the use of meeting in a virtual space that’s less interesting than the cubicle you surf from?
Just my two cents…. Pavig Lok.
Digado
said on June 11th
God you hit the nail right on the head (dutch expression, not sure that translate into English but you get the point i hope :P):
“Discussion of immersion (versus augmentation usually) in secondlife and other virtual worlds is often railroaded by the “immersionists” and their own take on it. As Mis Tateru points out in this article their style of immersion would be better called “escapism”. “
I’ve run into that more than once, and am really done with that ‘discussion’. I call it ‘the discussion that never was’ and somehow, managed to reach the status of some kind of taboo by what seems to be deliberate misunderstanding, but enough of that. Again you manage to put words to my thoughts here. I agree 100%.
On the points of business application of immersion - I’ve recently written a report on the ‘5 things holding business back’ and it identifies the problem(s) you mention, but there is more to it:
- The 3D is still seen as a gaming element, something immature and not suited for social behavior by a large majority of the companies. (because 1. lack of cases 2. They have been raised to believe rich 3D environments = game). Its hard to tell when this will change as virtual reality will first need to ‘cross the chasm’.
- The technology is still the center of attention, not the application, and certainly not the benefits or solutions it provides. The application of VR is still remarkable enough to make headlines in a newspaper. But this is changing slowly.
- Accessibility: Pretty self explanatory. Computer hardware, internet connections and the virtual platforms have not reached a level of ubiquitous use yet. The next wave of PC’s (in terms of what is the average working/home PC) is going to have full 3D support required to run the virtual environments of ‘04/’05. There is obviously a ‘lag’ issue here - Blue mars, Crytek2 or AoC won’t hit that level until 2011.
Accessibility also has to do with the interaction with 3D environments but that’s a simple issue compared to the other ‘problems’. The other 2 are more general problems with technological innovation (the waiting game and replacing rather than contributing). It’s exciting to see movement on all these three lines, they slowly move towards solving 5 major issues of the future in the ‘information age’.
Really appreciate your insights here Pavig, brilliant addition to my semi-coherent post ;)
Justin Gibbs
said on June 11th
I agree with Pavig Lok that a large part of the immersion is the “gamer elements”, but there can and will be other elements to create immersion. As others have pointed out, most games involve violence because it’s the easiest thing to show with today’s limited technology. But what happens when a character can cry or show subtle emotions. Maybe these business shared environments can stumble upon new elements for creating immersion.
Digado
said on June 11th
Hello Justin,
I agree, hence my (renewed) interest now the medical sector is not only researching, but already actively applying immersion. Different angle - different insights.
Love your website by the way, reading trough it now, lot of good insights on immersive storytelling