Experiencing opposite-sex body in VR causes gender identity shifts
New research shows that experiencing an opposite-sex body in virtual reality impacted the subject's gender identity.
27 December, 2020
Credit: Adobe
- Scientists find that experiencing an opposite-sex body can affect a person's gender identity.
- A new study utilized virtual reality to get subjects to feel like they had a stranger's body.
- The researchers found that people's sense of their own gender became more balanced after the experiments.
<p>Is associating with a certain gender more of a flexible sense than hardwired biological fact? A new study shows that people who were put under the illusion of having an opposite-sex body developed a more equal understanding, with fewer stereotypes, of both male and female aspects.</p><p>In their paper, the scientists <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-71467-z" target="_blank">defined</a> gender identity as "a collection of thoughts and feelings about one's own gender, which may or may not correspond to the sex assigned at birth." To probe this, they designed three experiments using virtual reality that allowed people to experience what it's like to have a body they weren't born with.</p>
<p>The experiments, led by Pawel Tacikowski of Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, involved a relatively large sample of 140 people. One of the experiments had participants wearing a head-mounted display that was playing a first-person POV video of either a male or female body. The participants had to watch the stranger's body being touched while the same kind of action, on the same part, was being performed to their body. The synchronized nature of the touching created the illusion of another person's body being their own. </p><p>One of the changed conditions had the stranger's body appear to be threatened with a knife. Other control conditions had the touches being asynchronous, disrupting the illusion. In all the cases, the subjects had to tell the scientists how masculine or feminine they perceived themselves. The experiments showed that the participants felt more connected to another person's body when the conditions were synchronized. Both females and males reported feeling less identification with their own gender during such experiences.</p>
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDk5ODI0OS9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzMzQ5ODM1OH0.9uBeJH_BIK6O_971gwbfeQbir1IHfHY1kUTbCfVKd0w/img.png?width=980" id="df114" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="1885c28ea25ebd7e1577c8bd6bd7bf8c" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="885" data-height="1370" />
Credit: Tacikowski / Fust/ Ehrsson / Scientific Reports.
<p>In experiment (a), subjects wore a head-mounted display in which a body of an unknown male or female was shown from a first-person perspective (with the participant's actual body out of view). In part (b), participants had to rate the illusion after every interaction to assess the degree of feeling that the stranger's body was their own.</p><blockquote>"We found that even a brief transformation of one's own perceived bodily sex dynamically updated the subjective, implicit, and personality-related aspects of the sense of own gender and made these aspects more balanced across male and female categories," <span id="selection-marker-1" class="redactor-selection-marker"></span>write<span id="selection-marker-2" class="redactor-selection-marker"></span> the scientists, adding "The fluidity of gender identity that we report here extends previous knowledge by demonstrating that the link between own body perception and the sense of own gender is dynamic, robust, and direct."</blockquote>
<p>Another experiment utilized the Implicit Association Test (IAT) to find that the implicit gender biases of the subjects became more balanced during the illusion of having the body of the opposite sex. The third test demonstrated that the illusion also affected explicit gender beliefs, with the participants more equally ranking both masculine and feminine traits.</p><p>Current gender theories, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-71467-z" target="_blank">as outlined</a> in the study, have moved away from positioning gender identity as a strict "male-female dichotomy." Instead, the scientists say, the prevailing view is that gender is derived individually from a variety of associations with both genders, as well as from personal genetics, hormones, patterns of behavior and social life. There is also the understanding that the sense of your own gender is determined by your beliefs about males and females overall. </p><p>Check out the study "Fluidity of gender identity induced by illusory body-sex change" in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-71467-z" target="_blank"><em>Scientific Reports.</em></a></p>
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Viewing nature in VR or on television boosts wellbeing, study finds
"Interacting" with nature through virtual reality applications had especially strong benefits, according to the study.
15 October, 2020
Credit: Jag_cz via Adobe Stock
- Previous studies have shown that spending time in nature can lead to a variety of mental and physical health benefits.
- The new study involved exposing people to a high-definition nature program through one of three mediums: TV, VR and interactive VR.
- The results suggest that nature programs may be an easy and effective way to give people a "dose" of nature, which may be especially helpful during pandemic lockdowns.
<p>Spending time in nature can bring you <a href="https://bigthink.com/surprising-science/ecotherapy-benefits?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1" target="_self">well-established health benefits</a>, from lowered anxiety and depression, to reduced blood pressure and a stronger immune system. But how nature produces these effects remains unclear. Is it the awe you feel hiking through a centuries-old forest? Time spent away from screens? The physical exercise?</p><p>Recent research adds a new dimension to scientists' understanding of how nature impacts wellbeing. <a href="https://www.exeter.ac.uk/news/research/title_821333_en.html" target="_blank">The study</a>, published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology, found that people who watched high-definition nature programs on TV or in virtual reality reported lower levels of boredom and other negative emotions. </p><p>For the study, researchers at the University of Exeter asked 96 participants to watch a video of a person describing their job at an office supply company. This was done to induce boredom. </p><p>The participants then watched or interacted with a nature program about a coral reef (which includes several scenes from the BBC's "Blue Planet II" series) under one of three randomly assigned conditions: </p><ul><li>2D video viewed on a high-definition TV screen</li><li>360-degree VR, viewed via a head mounted display (HMD)</li><li>Interactive computer-generated VR (CG-VR), also viewed via a HMD and interacted with using a hand-held controller</li></ul>
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDk5NzU4NC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY2NTQzMDcyN30.8IsC76JP2GomzxS0Vki3VBqBA1dOEW0J-xp3HgbM7ko/img.jpg?width=980" id="62871" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="b0d81538225982e42fc633a3f96aeb09" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="646" data-height="404" />
Example stills from the TV (top left), 360-VR (top right) and CG-VR (bottom right) exposure conditions.
Credit: Yeo et al.
<p>The results showed that watching the nature program under all three conditions lowered negative affect, including emotions like boredom and sadness. But only the group who experienced the program in interactive VR reported a boost in mood, and feelings of being more connected to nature.</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"Our results show that simply watching nature on TV can help to lift people's mood and combat boredom," lead researcher Nicky Yeo <a href="https://www.exeter.ac.uk/news/research/title_821333_en.html" target="_blank">told</a> University of Exeter News. "With people around the world facing limited access to outdoor environments because of COVID-19 quarantines, this study suggests that nature programmes might offer an accessible way for populations to benefit from a 'dose' of digital nature."</p>Helping those without access to nature
<p>"Dose" is probably a keyword: The researchers didn't compare the benefits of experiencing nature via TV or VR to experiencing it in person. But even beyond the pandemic, the findings suggest that experiencing nature via virtual reality could help people improve their mental wellbeing — a tool that could prove especially useful for people who don't live near natural environments.</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"Virtual reality could help us to boost the wellbeing of people who can't readily access the natural world, such as those in hospital or in long term care," co-author Mathew White told University of Exeter News. "But it might also help to encourage a deeper connection to nature in healthy populations, a mechanism which can foster more pro-environmental behaviours and prompt people to protect and preserve nature in the real world."</p><span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="7dbb34dc2cdb359617d23eeb4f554801"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7AkbUfZjS5k?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span><p>High-end VR headsets remain prohibitively costly for many consumers. One of the cheapest models, the Oculus Quest 2, costs $300, while more advanced headsets can run upward of $1,000. Still, you can buy barebones devices, like Google Cardboard, for about $10. These don't enable you to engage in fully interactive VR applications, but you could use them to view 360-degree <a href="https://youtu.be/mBWj443FNGs" target="_blank">virtual reality nature videos on YouTube</a>.<br></p>
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Why virtual reality is necessary on a planet of 11 billion
Virtual reality is more than a trick. It's a solution to big problems.
11 September, 2020
- According to projections shared by the UN, Earth's population is expected to reach 9.7 billion in 2050. By the year 2100, that number could increase to 11 billion. Virtual reality will be necessary to reduce the waste of such a large population in industries like transport, retail, and manufacturing.
- As an existing technology, there is a lot that virtual reality can do: rich and immersive environments, heightened storytelling, emotionally resonant experiences, and increased productivity in retail. But it's only in its infancy.
- As the world's population continues to grow, the technology will need to evolve to facilitate a larger network of users, and developers will have to think harder about the technological potential and the ethical, neurological, and emotional side effects.
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Can VR help us understand layers of oppression?
Researchers are using technology to make visual the complex concepts of racism, as well as its political and social consequences.
12 August, 2020
- Often thought of first as gaming tech, virtual reality has been increasingly used in research as a tool for mimicking real-life scenarios and experiences in a safe and controlled environment.
- Focusing on issues of oppression and the ripple affect it has throughout America's political, educational, and social systems, Dr. Courtney D. Cogburn of Columbia University School of Social Work and her team developed a VR experience that gives users the opportunity to "walk a mile" in the shoes of a black man as he faces racism at three stages in his life: as a child, during adolescence, and as an adult.
- Cogburn says that the goal is to show how these "interwoven oppressions" continue to shape the world beyond our individual experiences. "I think the most important and powerful human superpower is critical consciousness," she says. "And that is the ability to think, be aware and think critically about the world and people around you...it's not so much about the interpersonal 'Do I feel bad, do I like you?'—it's more 'Do I see the world as it is? Am I thinking critically about it and engaging it?'"
<p><em>This video is part of <a href="https://z17.global/" target="_blank">Z 17 Collective</a>'s <a href="https://bigthink.com/future-of-learning/" rel="dofollow" target="_self">Future of Learning</a> series, which asks education thought leaders what learning can and should look like in the midst and wake of the coronavirus pandemic.</em></p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<a href="https://bigthink.com/future-of-learning/" target="_blank"><img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzM3MDgzOC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzNTIxMDU0Nn0.RnamarLhJ2fAVmEm83vDol1Fw3tvuAywPAeO0cQSgw4/img.jpg?width=980" id="52023" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="4e4429fb5a330f41147d97917f0b798a" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt=""></a>
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The COVID effect: How more time at home translated to record porn views
The line between work and play has became blurred during the pandemic.
16 July, 2020
Credit: Mariia Korneeva / Shutterstock
- Pornhub measured its daily traffic and reported an average increase of 24% in daily traffic compared to days before COVID-19 lockdown.
- During lockdown, VR porn has helped breach the gap between social distancing and human connection.
- There are many reasons it's better to pay for porn than rely on free websites: it reduces exploitation, the quality is better, and you can dive into the world of VR.
<p><br></p>
<p>Since the breakout of COVID-19, we have seen an undeniable pattern: As countries went into isolation, their use of porn increased. Pornhub, the worlds largest porn website, measured its daily traffic and reported an average <a href="https://www.pornhub.com/insights/coronavirus-update-april-14" target="_blank">increase of 24% in daily traffic</a> compared to days before lockdown. Interestingly, the countries that were slow to isolate showed no increase in traffic until they went into isolation.</p><p>To provide an example, Italy, which was one of the first European countries to go into lockdown, saw its use of porn increase by <a href="https://www.pornhub.com/insights/coronavirus-update-april-2#demographic" target="_blank">57% on March 12</a> compared to previous days. Both the United Kingdom and the United States, however, which were slower to respond to the pandemic, saw an increase in porn traffic later in March, just as they began to tighten social policy.</p>
Porn sites' response to COVID
<p>Several porn sites made their premium features free during the pandemic so that people would be more inclined to stay at home. In addition, a number of websites enabled their verified models to upload content and receive 100% of the income generated from those videos in a bid to help support them during the pandemic.</p><p>From the beginning of March, there was a <a href="https://www.pornhub.com/insights/verified-model-uploads" target="_blank">30% increase</a> of uploaded material from adult models compared to previous periods. Interestingly, more than 1,000 corona-themed videos were uploaded onto Pornhub, many of which received over one million views each. Surprisingly, corona and COVID were searched over 15 million times during this period.</p>How virtual reality bridged the gap of social distancing and human connection
<p>Porn fulfills a need when there is no one around but it's not quite the real thing so, after a point, it can leave us wanting a little bit more. Unfortunately, COVID is forcing us to wait a significant amount of time before we can really connect with someone, but thanks to virtual reality websites, such as <a href="https://badoinkvr.com" target="_blank">Badoink VR porn</a>, that little bit more was enough for many to stay at home, remain safe and satisfied.</p><p>Virtual reality porn is as close to the real thing as you can experience despite being completely alone. You can experience your sexual fantasies as though you are actually in the room watching or even experiencing the actors and actresses before you. When you look around the room or check out your company for the evening, you see it from a point-of-view perspective, which gives it a very realistic feel. It's the perfect bridge between reality and fantasy. Of course, it's no substitute for the real thing, but during lockdown, there are not many ways you can make it better.</p>Why paying for porn is better for everyone
<p>You may ask, 'Why pay for something when you can get it for free?' but COVID has highlighted the importance of looking after those who keep us going during difficult times. We have a reasonable expectation to pay for things that we use and consume, be it music, movies, and even dating sites, <a href="https://mashable.com/article/pay-for-your-porn-erika-lust/?europe=true" target="_blank">so why should porn be any different?</a> On some level, we recognize that we receive a better quality service or product when we make a financial contribution and doing so prevents the exploitation of others in disadvantaged circumstances.</p> <p>It's fair to say that few other industries have exploited people more than the adult industry and websites that offer free porn indirectly and perhaps unintentionally contribute to this due to video piracy, and lack of control over how the performers are being treated or rewarded for their effort. Paying for porn means that everyone gets a better deal, so consider finding a site that works for you. You can feel proud of being socially responsible and be sure to get a better quality product, especially if you are stepping into the modern era of virtual reality.</p>
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