From: jdb9608@ultb.isc.rit.edu (J.D. Beutel) Subject: Re: New sensory modalities which probably will not appear. Date: Sat, 4 May 91 23:21:19 GMT Organization: Rochester Institute of Technology I think I may not have explained my meaning well enuf. I'm not suggesting that VR training will add new sensory modalities; I'm suggesting that it will change the ones we have now. Our perception is changing all the time, but VR may allow us to change it faster, more profoundly, or in ways we were never able to before. I'm not trying to defend the magnetic field or material stress examples; they may be wrong in particular. My point was, in general, that people do not simply see what is there, like a video camera. What people see depends on what they have been trained to see--it depends on their higher-level knowledge. Let me give you another example, from Mr. Kilian's article itself: In article <1991May1.014938.15819@milton.u.washington.edu> kilian@poplar.cray.co m (Alan Kilian) writes: >>From: jdb9608@ultb.isc.rit.edu (J.D. Beutel) >> >>Sometimes you see what you expect to see, even tho (sic) it's not really >> >>Many suprising (sic) discoveries have been made about human perception, so Mr. Kilian has seen my spelling errors. Adding the "(sic)" editorial comment is not necessary because most people reading this know that the newsreader program copies the quoted article--they would not attribute the spelling error to a typo by Mr. Kilian. But, he added the "(sic)"s anyway. Those spelling errors must have really stood out to him, distracting him from my article. At the very least, he noticed them. I'm sure he didn't say to himself, "hmmmm, let me see what spelling errors David has made," nor run my article thru a spell-checker. They just stood out; he simply saw them. This is a wonderful example of the subjectivity of perception. Thanks to training, Mr. Kilian can see my spelling mistakes. On the other hand, I cannot see my spelling mistakes. (Well, okay, the "tho" was intentional, but the "suprising" was not.) I know many people similar to me who cannot see spelling errors like this; and, I know many who can. Obviously we are all looking at the same words, but what we "see" is different. With training (e.g., a text editor which highlights spelling errors) I might learn to see spelling mistakes like Mr. Kilian does. My perception would be changed thru training assistance from a computer program. Learning to see magnetic fields or material stress points may be impossible (or at least much more difficult). But, for many cases like this we won't really know it's impossible until we try it. We can't just say, "well, nobody's ever seen it, so therefore it can't be seen." With VR we're talking about new ways of seeing. People involved with VR will have to keep in mind not only how the users perceive the VR, but also how that perception itself will be changed by the VR. > -Alan Kilian kilian@cray.com 612.683.5499 > Cray Research, Inc. | Getting up early is an absolute drag, > 655 F Lone Oak Drive | at least I should suppose it would be. > Eagan MN, 55121 | -James S. Kunen _The Strawberry Statement_ -- -- J. David Beutel 11011011 jdb9608@cs.rit.edu "I am, therefore I am."