In his essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” Walter Benjamin argues that even the most flawless reproduction cannot prevent the decay of aura of the artwork. This article...Show moreIn his essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” Walter Benjamin argues that even the most flawless reproduction cannot prevent the decay of aura of the artwork. This article as a comparative literary research challenges his viewpoint by proposing that VR experiences can surpass the limitation of mechanical reproduction. Moreover, it suggests that the real-life art experience is more just its original context, and that it also has a social side to it. Although this argument is supported by articles tackling the influence of visitors’ surroundings on how museum goers look at art, it concludes that the authority of an artwork’s authenticity cannot be overcome by such modes of multimedia.Show less
Presence is the psychological state of perceiving oneself as being in the VR. Studying factors that increase presence is crucial as it increases the benefits of virtual reality training. The higher...Show morePresence is the psychological state of perceiving oneself as being in the VR. Studying factors that increase presence is crucial as it increases the benefits of virtual reality training. The higher the degree of presence, the more people behave as in real life, which leads to improved skill learning. The present study examined the research question if there is an effect of vibro-tactile feedback on presence in virtual reality (VR). The hypotheses were that vibro-tactile feedback has an effect on presence and on its subscales, namely: being there, spatial presence, involvement and realness. In comparison to previous studies, this study uses vibro-tactile feedback delivered by a haptic vest, instead of force feedback. The experiment was one hour long and took place at TNO. Thirty-eight participants took part in the study. The participants were split into two conditions: the first condition received haptic feedback and the second did not receive haptic feedback. Both groups watched six 360VR videos and filled in one presence questionnaire after each video. Afterwards, the data was analysed with 5 ANCOVAs and 5 Bayesian ANCOVAs. The results showed no significant effect of vibro-tactile feedback on presence and its subscales in VR. The results highlight the importance of differentiating between vibro-tactile and haptic force feedback when studying the effect of haptic feedback on presence. Another implication is to include videos in which the participants associate sensational memory with. This indicates that the participants should have prior experience with the scenario in order to increase presence. Concluding, further studies must be conducted to clearly state that vibrotactile effect has no effect on presence.Show less
Contemporary police officers often lack a proper understanding of civilian’s mental states required to deliver an appropriate empathic response. Recently, virtual reality (VR) emerged as a...Show moreContemporary police officers often lack a proper understanding of civilian’s mental states required to deliver an appropriate empathic response. Recently, virtual reality (VR) emerged as a promising medium to promote empathy, offering several crucial advantages over traditional methods. However, as research is limited on VR empathy training, its effectiveness and practical utility for the police remains unclear. This study investigated the effectivity and utility of two VR empathy tools for the Dutch police force. In this study, 11 Dutch police officers were immersed in two simulations of the perspectives of a child victim of domestic violence (DV) and a person living with a mild intellectual disability (MID), in counterbalanced order. Results showed that, in line with the hypotheses, for the DV simulation, participants’ illusionary feeling of presence in the virtual world predicted their emotional involvement with the experience, and in turn, this emotional involvement predicted empathy towards victims of domestic violence. Contrary to the hypotheses, for the MID simulation, presence did not predict emotional involvement. Yet, in line with the hypotheses, emotional involvement did predict empathy towards people living with a mild intellectual disability. Combined with insights from post-simulation interviews, both VR empathy tools are concluded to be effective and useful for Dutch police empathy training. These findings highlight VR’s potential to shape scalable and standardardized training opportunities to support the complex role of contemporary policing. Future research could extend our approach by including a control group and by making a direct comparison between VR, traditional perspective-taking tasks, and roleplay empathy training.Show less
