Stanford Virtual Worlds Research

This article contains selected notes on the some of the research conducted at Stanford University on virtual worlds and the interaction of humans within virtual environments. It is based on sessions held during the Media X conference. Pat Hanrahan defined a virtual world as a “networked multi-user distributed environment”. But the audience reaction was altogether less technical, and more oriented towards the social implications of such environments.

Stanford is one of the few universities that can not simply be accused of climbing on the virtual worlds band-wagon: People like Nick Yee were examining these environments at long before they were regarded as a suitable topic for serious research. Related sessions on workplace application and DKP and the archiving of virtual worlds/games will be covered by separate articles.

Why Use Virtual Environments for Medical Training?

LeRoy Heinrichs spoke on the use of virtual medical rooms for training medical students.

It is cost effective, even when developing bespoke software: Conducting a live training exercise in a physical hospital costs about $50,000 per day, and can only train a relatively small group. Stanford’s first virtual patient model cost almost $1 million to develop, yet in the long run is still cheaper than physical-world exercises.

Initial analysis of performance is not yet conclusive, however early signs suggest knowledge does transfer to real practice, and virtual training is just as good as other methods.

The business case for virtual worlds is ultimately a critical driver to their success outside of their traditional (game or social) environments. Medicine is a fundamentally expensive business, so even with custom software, one user can make a saving. Other sectors may be slower to follow, waiting for the cost to drop. Cost are likely to drop by sharing development costs between multiple projects - either industry-wide initiatives, or through the development of platforms for virtual worlds, which will transfer most of the costs on to a single provider, who can then share those costs between many customers.

Size Matters

Renate Fruchter revealed that visual size does matter. Ideally people should appear on screen life-size: In most cases that means a bigger screen!

Jeremy Bailenson outlined some of Nick Yee’s research behind the “virtual mirror”. The virtual mirror is a technique that changes the visual identity of a person’s avatar while in a virtual world: Their avatars literally look into a mirror and take a different form.

The experiment is useful in understanding the consequences of an apparently fluid online identity, and determining whether self-perception theory (and similar) transfer to avatars: If you don’t know how to act, you look at yourself, particularly your uniform, and that determines your behaviour.

Height is important. In the physical world, height correlates to confidence and personal income. Through the use of an “ultimatum game”, where avatars negotiate a deal, it was possible to show that a 10cm difference in avatar height increased the value of that avatar’s deals in their favour.

Physical attractiveness of avatars was also tested by examining “interpersonal distance”: If you like someone, you will tend to stand closer to them. And they’ll disclose more information.

Finally the effects of age were tested by morphing pictures of one’s self to show the passing of years. The older the avatar, the more the subjects were prepared to invest in their retirement.

Further detail on some of these topics can be found at The Daedalus Project.

Tim Howgego, 12th March 2008. Related topics: Media X, Medicine, Metaverse, Virtual Worlds.

Comments welcome