From: Marc Bernatchez Subject: HUMAN-FACTORS: Children, VR, and home entertainment Date: Sun, 24 Nov 1996 12:41:49 -0500 >> Anyway, I find >> it way more wise to bring the general public (including the media, the >> companies, etc.) to brake before they've done harm than the opposite. > >Don't patronise the public - just give them the facts. We don't "patronize the public" here. They are clever enough to make their own decisions about the comments we bring up. > It should be >worth also requesting that an 'engineer in training' only comments to >the media on subjects he is experienced in. Robin, what are you expressing here? This is rather flaming (not well seen in this newsgroup) and unfounded. You judge very severely for a person that is thousands miles away and never met the guy in person (me). I'm still waiting to see reference of articles you may have published that addresses the very point this whole thread was about at first... The influence an HMD could have on kids in their 8 to 15 years old. I'm just applying your own technique Robin, that is that you need publications and such to support your sayings and expertise in a given subject. Anyway, I never called myself an expert. Let me insert some text from an E-mail reply I did to some people here. ======= begin =========================================== Unfortunately no, I don't know of any studies that could support this idea. What brings me to think that it could happen is based on some reading I have made in the first months of my master research way back. I read somewhere that the growing number of people requiring the use of glasses to correct their view was partially due to the equally growing number of intellectual people in our society. It was mentioned that because of that, people (young ones especially) were looking at close objects (such as reading a book) over longer and longer periods of time during their everyday routine. It was said that some parts of the retina captors were in fact sensors that acted as growth sensor giving the brain some feedback about the actual condition of the child visual acuity. By looking at close object over a longer period of the day, it suggested that the sensors would send growth information to the brain in such that the eye would evolve to suite that need for close-by object looking for that person. This would sort off proof that such factors could disrupt the normal growth of the visual system of young people still in their growth. This in turn would thus apply to HMDs if it reveals to be true. This should be found in one of these two books: The science of virtual reality and virtual environments » by Roy S. Kalawsky, Édition Addison-Wesley, 1993, 405 pages. "Virtual Reality ExCursions with programs in C" by Christopher Watkins and Stephen R. Marenka, Édition Academic Press, 1994, 503 pages. It was in the section where they talk about the human factors of one of these two books. ======= end ============================================== >Regular newsgroup readers >will remember that I mathematically proved Marc's 'quality of HMD' >measure to be fundamentally faulted a few months back (the best HMD >had a 0 degree field of view!). Still totally wrong. I appreciated Robin's feedback and removed any sever flaws from the algorithms based on his concerns. Where did you saw the 0 degree thing anyway Robin? |:-) A lot of people told me they liked this kind of info. Then again, you will say that this doesn't prove anything as to the veracity of the facts in the article. True. But that is the best way I found to objectively compare the HMDs. If you can bring me a better way to do it, I'll be happy to consider it Robin. [...] >But having 20 arc minutes per pixel in a 20 degree FOV HMD is like having >tunnel-vision, which is also a severe sight-defect! If you are going to >argue your case, don't use figures of speech, anecdotes and >generalisations. If you can give us *good* scientific findings and >arguments to back up your view, then we will not be able to disagree. Robin robin, I didn't want people to agree or disagree. I just said let's be careful... after that, do what you want with the warning sign. I don't see why you and Mr. Wann felt so attacked by these light remarks I and other made. >> have certain rules to respect. One of these is to protect the >> public. That should be the number one priority of any one in the VR >> field reading this. > >Is Marc implying that other researchers/developers disregard public >safety? I've certainly not seen this in my contact with the VR >industry, in fact quite the opposite often applies. If Marc is going >to make such a serious accusation, I presume he has the solid facts to >back it up. Then again you amplify the context way out of its boundaries. I never implied or accused people of not respecting these factors. I said it "should" be the no.1 priority...if it already is the case, well... fine! >interesting to see if the prominent researchers back up Marc's subjective >arguments, but since I know much of the content already, I would not put >any money on it! Robin, I'll be as happy than you if I hear that there is no such problems to be worried of. Like I said, I'm not trying to win any battle here. Are you? One last note, I really want to reassure people, I'm a HMD lover and I will do all I can to promote their use. This use must be moderated by some criteria like it's the case of any tools we use in our everyday life. If HMDs are well designed and used, they are one of the most effective way to provide high Immersion VR worlds. Nevertheless, my best regards to you and all the other member of this community Marc Bernatchez | E-mail: mbernat@gel.ulaval.ca C.O.P.L. (local plt-00307) |============================================ Dep. Genie electrique | http://www.gel.ulaval.ca/~mbernat Universite LAVAL | http://www.imaginative.com/VResources Quebec, Canada |============================================ G1K 7P4 | Virtual Reality is the future of computers ==========================================================================