Virtual Reality Monitoring: How Real is Virtual Reality?
by Keith Hullfish

CHAPTER 3 VIRTUAL REALITY MONITORING

3.1 The Definition of Virtual Reality

What is a virtual reality? Suppose that Virtual Reality technology perfectly simulated real environments. Then, it would be indistinguishable from reality. The phenomenological experience would not be labeled as virtual, but be interpreted as real. On the other hand, any qualitative differences would falsify this claim. There would be phenomenological characteristics that would be judged to be artifacts from some other source. Thus, virtual reality should not be defined in the context of its intended interpretation, but rather by the artifacts it leaves behind. Experiments within the Virtual Reality Monitoring paradigm should seek to identify these artifacts so as to assess the quality of the phenomenology that the technology generates.

3.2 The Role of Source Monitoring

Virtual Reality Monitoring is the decision process by which people distinguish between real, virtual, and imagined events, as represented in memory. It adapts the theoretical framework of the source monitoring paradigm (Johnson et al., 1993) by including virtual reality as another source of information which may produce an alternative phenomenological reality. This framework offers several advantages. First, it affords an established context within which to understand the attribution process, how people could abstract their realities (i.e., reality monitoring), and the criteria used to distinguish particular sources. It also provides a set of characteristics which could be used to describe the phenomenological artifacts from a virtual reality, albeit in memory.

The theoretical framework also affords a context with which to identify the qualities encoded in a memory from a virtual reality. The matching of this memory to the schema for another origin carries an implicit comparison of phenomenal experiences. Different origins potentially have similar phenomenal qualities. According to the framework, these similarities would be manifest in the confusions between these origins. Hence, the degree of confusion would represent the degree to which these origins share a common set of qualities. If the qualities of the other origin are known, it can be inferred that the memory of the virtual event also has those qualities. On the other hand, the attribution process also highlights the qualities unique to memories from a virtual reality, as represented in the correct attribution of source.

The source monitoring paradigm, and reality monitoring in particular, is also advantageous because it can address themes inherent in the other definitions of reality. The measurement of reality is operationalized to reflect its process-oriented definition. In monitoring experiments, participants must determine what is real by choosing the source of a memory from a specified set of possible origins. Second, the quality of the virtual experience may be studied in the context of the dichotomy between external (i.e., real) and internal (i.e., imagined) origins of phenomenal experience, as suggested by distal attribution (Loomis, 1992). The well-established schemas for these origins provide the anchors in the comparison with which to partition and classify the qualities of the virtual experience. This context also reflects the self/nonself distinction found in all of the other definitions of reality. Finally, although a participant's expectations of real experiences are not explicitly defined, whether these expectations were met is defined by the degree to which memories of virtual events are misattributed to real origins. For instance, given a spatial stimulus, if people expect to be surrounded by a three-dimensional space, and feel present, then any inadequacies of the technology which fail to create this illusion could potentially generate cues to an origin other than real.

3.3 The Turing-Test

Source monitoring has been studied in the context of many other phenomena such as eyewitness testimony, cryptomnesia, incorporating fiction as fact, delusions, hallucinations, confabulations, amnesia, and aging (Johnson et al., 1993). This thesis adds the valuation of technology to this list. Virtual Reality Monitoring is one possible Turing test with regards to the determination of reality for this new technology. The qualities of the virtual experience will be measured by the quality of its representation in memory. If memories of virtual events are indistinguishable from real, then the qualities that the technology generates are sufficient to meet people's expectations of reality. It may be inferred that the technology successfully convinces its participants that their experience is real, at least in memory. Conversely, attributing a memory of a virtual reality to an origin other than real exposes the artifacts which inhibit achieving this goal.

Similar inferences may be made of the phenomenal experience. Memory is a record of our experience; it captures the perceptions and reflective processes during the initial experience (Johnson et al., 1993). Differences in the qualities of memories are thought to reflect differences in the phenomenological qualities of the original experiences. For instance, if the experiences from two environments were isomorphic, then it would be expected that their representation in memory would also be isomorphic. Conversely, if the memories were not similar, the original experiences could not be considered similar. However, memories should not be considered isomorphic with the phenomenal experience. Memory is subject to elaboration; cognitive effort and emotion associated with the experience may be encoded as well. Nevertheless. it provides cues about the qualities of the phenomenal experience. Thus, it provides evidence for the degree to which artifacts from the interface are included in the original virtual experience.

3.4 The Original Question

How do you characterize the quality of the virtual experience? If the goal of virtual reality is to be like reality, we must be able to discriminate those qualities which are atypical of people's expectations of reality. Only by characterizing these qualities through the comparisons inherent in the monitoring process can we judge the inadequacies of the technology so as to better simulate reality.