From: John Wann Subject: Re: HUMAN-FACTORS: Children, VR, and home entertainment Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 17:32:48 +0000 Message-ID: Marc Bernatchez wrote: > > See the small E-mail interview I gave to someone at this address: > http://www.imaginative.com/VResources/vr_revs/vr_revs1.html#The hardware >corner > Like I state in the interview I pointed out above, it may be of real > concern if young kids use HMDs for long period of time (1 hour or more > non stop by example) repeatedly. I've just read Marc's "interview" and I think the statements made are unwise and cannot be substantiated on our current knowledge. I share his concern that we need to tread carefully in introducing "games" HMDs that may be used for very long periods. But this "concern" has to be based on empirical data: We are one of the few research groups that has undertaken (and published) physiological measurements of the visual changes following HMD use and our 1993 papers gave rise to the initial "scare" or "concern" about HMDs and shortly after that the "games HMD" to which Marc refers was postponed and still hasn't appeared. I would stress, however, that the implications of our findings were exaggerated by the media and I would council Marc to guard against giving the media the fuel to do this again. Marc also suggests that some HMD companies have jumped on the bandwagon, without worrying about human-factors. I have had contacts with a number of HMD producers/designers and we have undertaken appraisal work for some of them and I have certainly haven't encountered this attitude. The manufacturers I know of consider the optical design of their devices as a priority issue. Yes, there are issues that arise for the design of HMDs, but these need to be considered through a clear, unemotive consideration of the vision-science findings. Lets work with the HMD industry, not against it, the last thing the industry needs is another scare of what "might be....if". John Wann ********************************************************* Dr John P. Wann < J.P.Wann@rdg.ac.uk> ********************************************************** Action Research Laboratory: Development, Rehabilitation, Immersive Virtual Environments (Wann, Mon-Williams, Langaas, Smyth , Swapp ) Supported by: Action Research; EPSRC: European Commission ARL - DRIVE Department of Psychology University of Reading PO Box 238, Reading RG6 6AL, UK +44 1734 318532 Fx +44 1734 316604 ***********************************************************