Feeling and Sensing in The Virtual World: How and Why Do We Get Emotionally Affected by Virtual Experiences in Reality

 

Is Virtual Reality fundamentally different from Reality, or does it evoke emotions, feelings and sensations that we typically experience in our real lives? We may get immersed in technologies that enable us to enter a virtual reality, experiencing and seeing places and things without leaving our houses, sometimes without realizing or at least the questioning of the components that construct that reality and how they affect us. We interact, we participate, we live in-numerous situations and circumstances that maybe we wouldn’t experience in a different way. The fact that we’re able to do so, is considered an incredible breakthrough and opportunity, while some might dismiss it as a mere fiction or “make believe”, others might experience and feel in a very deeper level. The feeling upon experiencing a virtual reality is the center here.

To analyze and understand on how we get emotionally affected by something that isn’t real, we need to ask ourselves, what is real? How we define reality? The notion of the real is key of our study and the emotions triggered by it, are what we aim to understand. To do so, it’s needed first to understand this technology and its capabilities, how we got here and what we should expect. It’s important to analyze the immersive conditions in which Virtual Reality places us on, and how do we allow it, so it’s so vivid to us. It's crucial as well to analyze on human behavior and understand how the human emotions are triggered.

In this study, the purpose is as well to investigate on the psychological mechanisms of emotional engagement and the notion of space and place one has. To understand emotions and why we feel them, is the first step to translate it into the virtual reality and how we use our senses to experience sensations and ultimately, feel something. To be physically in a place and occupy a space is an aspect that transports not only our body, but our minds as well. To be virtually in a place, our bodies are occupying a different space, and our minds taking a different space. So how do we disconnect and connect our body and minds to live our emotions? If our emotions make us experience body reactions, to build the link between body and mind is key for a true immersive experience.

 

 

What is This Reality After All?

 

Virtual Reality, commonly known as VR, is not a new concept. More than thirty years ago, we were already developing and experiencing devices and programs in virtual reality. Although, VR became much more popular on the recent years, and one of the reasons for that is the advanced technology that now we have in place. Big wires plugged in a headset are no longer needed, the devices themselves are much lighter, and the responses to our interactions are also much more accurate. Not only that, the level of quality on programs, games and videos we see on VR have improved drastically, collaborating to a much more immersive experience.

With that in mind, one might ask what is this immersion on VR we’re talking about? What exactly is needed or happens, so we’re fully immersed into a virtual experience? There are a couple of factors in place that brings people deeper in the level of immersion in VR, that are related to our senses and to our body. In Virtual reality, a crucial aspect is the sensory system, primarily involving the activation of vision and hearing. An ideal system would as well be able to simulate senses as tasting and smelling that are not still a reality. Another crucial aspect involves touch and body movement, which is facilitated by our body’s movement and haptic feedback. Our Immersion deepens as we experience and move ourselves and get responses from the controller.

Additionally, there are other aspects as well for immersion which we might call illusions, that are: Place illusion, plausibility illusion and, embodiment illusion, as described by Mel Slater, ICREA Research Professor, from the Faculty of Psychology, University of Barcelona. Those illusions are layers to which someone might feel immersion on VR. The first one is about the feeling of being in a virtual place, and it relies on the environment and the virtual world aspect. Plausibility illusion refers to a more dynamic aspect where we begin to question if the experience is really happening and how real are the events in place. The third illusion it relates to our body, so it's looking not only around, but below and to you and using haptics, that make you feel that your virtual body is your own. Those factors bring us closer to a much more immersive VR state and are directly responsible for how and to which extend we feel on those experiences.

 

 

From Spectator to Actor

 

Immersion defined as, “the fact of becoming completely involved in something”, according to Cambridge Dictionary, involves the notion of involvement and an object, which in this context can be a space or place. These concepts are fundamental for analyzing our experiences in virtual reality. “Space is experienced directly by having room in which to move.” (Tuan, Space and Place, 1977, p. 15). “Place is whatever stable object catches our attention.” (Tuan, Space and Place, 1977, p. 161). Those definitions by Yi-Fu Tuan, set the boundaries and parameters to which we consider an experience in VR, and how it fundamentally enables the sense of immersion. While experiencing Virtual Reality, with the proper device, we have physically a room in which we can move, additionally, the avatars we operated in the experience have a room to be moved as well. These rooms may contain and create places in which we navigate, and through our senses, catch our attention.

Now, considering the sense of immersion in an experience in VR, what are the triggers and motivations that lead to the experience of feelings and emotions? Firstly, it's important to note that the deeper the immersion, the closer one feels to reality while experiencing VR as if it’s real life. Why is that though? Why do feel as if “we were there” and that it “looks like is actually happening” in a virtual reality experience, if we know that’s not the case. When we watch a film, a fiction movie, for instance, we get caught up in the story, we might get scared, sad, and excited by the scenes presented to us. However, these responses are often superficial, as we interpret the presented work of art. In a virtual reality experience, one is often placed in a space and place where they become the main character, most of the times, actively to living the story and creating, rather than passively observing.

“Experience is a cover-all term for the various modes through which a person knows and construct a reality. These modes range from the more direct and passive senses of smell, taste, and touch, to active visual perception and the indirect mode of symbolization.” (Tuan, Space and Place, 1977, p. 8).  So, while we know a movie is not real, on VR we’re building a reality to experience it. And as it brings us further to a reality, brings us closer to feeling. The construction of this reality is mostly done by us. Anil Seth, Professor of Neuroscience of Sussex University in England, defined once that “the world we live in comes from both the outside, and if not more, by the inside.” (Young, Super Senses, 2021, p. 40).

 

 

To Feel or Not to Feel

 

Do we feel because it’s real then? Or we feel because it feels real? What is real in that sense? Tuan defined that “The real, we feel, is important, but paradoxically it also goes unnoticed. (…) The real is the familiar daily round, unobtrusive like breathing. The real involves our whole being, all our senses.” (Tuan, Space and Place, 1977, p. 145). According to that concept, the closer the events are from our personal previous experiences, the stronger we feel it, and consider it being plausible and possible. Is that enough to trigger our emotions?

In the experiment, participants were asked without much explanation on what’s being observed, to put on a Meta Quest 2 and experience on VR. None of the subjects had much experience with VR and usability, so to focus on the emotional aspect, it was shown experiences that didn’t need any control interactions. The events were being under the sea, flying on a wingsuit, being on a space station and facing animals in the jungle. All the four said that it felt real, one mentioning that “the reality is so real”. They all said they were frightened, either by sharks and lions, or falling into the cliffs, and one said that that they wished they were there. Another said that “my mind knows it's not real, but my body doesn’t.” That is somewhat closer to William James defended theory on emotion, stating that we get sad because we cry, not the other way around.

All four of the interviewed felt something, and affirmed they were engaged and emotionally involved, even though having the notion that the experiences were not real. So, is reality really what makes us feel? It’s evident that part of their emotional response is influenced by starting the experiment aware they are on VR and using a headset. If we consider that “Emotions translate the affective resonance of the event in a way that is understandable to others.” (Le Breton, Les passions ordinaires: anthropologie des émotions, 2019, p. 145), we try to make sense of what we’re feeling to explain to others and, we’re trying to make sense of all the connections our brain is making and our body reactions.

“The individual reacts to the situation with a series of physiological and psychological changes, expressing themselves through mimes, gestures, attitudes, words that socially manifest the influence of the emotion that has taken over them.” (Le Breton, Les passions ordinaires: anthropologie des émotions, 2019, p.148). Our emotions are reflections of our direct interpretation of the events we’re sensing, from recollecting any type of memories that will bring a familiarity to the situation. It doesn’t mean we don’t experience feelings for something we have never encountered before, although it might be more challenging to identify or contextualize those emotions. We often say, “I wouldn’t know how to feel if that happened to me” referring to an unlived negative experience.

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Deeper Into the Rabbit’s Hole

 

To analyze and comprehend human’s emotions are rather difficult, especially trying to define or to build a single narrative. There are multiple factors that will trigger emotions. Some will come from our deepest instincts, others from socially constructed behaviors, and many more from our lived experiences and reactions to what one day we sensed. Tuan also conceptualized that “Human feeling is not a succession of discrete sensations; rather memory and anticipation are able to wield sensory impacts into a shifting stream of experience so that we may speak of a life of feeling as we do of a life of thought.” (Tuan, Space and Place, 1977, p. 10).

With that in mind, when one is immersed in an experience of seeing sharks on VR, one knows that those sharks are not actually there, although they won’t stop from flinching if one suddenly comes in order direction. They have not necessarily been bitten by a shark before, although it’s known that they can bite, and it is quite dangerous sometimes. If one sees a dinosaur, that’s even farther from their memories and experiences, but their brains and senses will bring the anticipation of seeing a huge lizard with sharp teeth growling to them. Instinctively they will conclude that it may implicit danger.

Human senses will make one’s bodies react to those experiences. One might try to evade, lean forward, or even back away from what one is seeing and hearing, and as the experience shows quality and events closer to their routine, it may feel more real, and the emotions would be stronger. When individuals consider an active VR experience where it’s possible to control avatars, individuals gain another dimension of mobility, furthering the immersion, to a point they could potentially forget in which room of the house they physically are, or the sense of direction on where objects would be, where the door is for example, that possibly they could recognize with their eyes shut.

In sum, it’s noticeable that when one sees, hears, and virtually touches something, they’re bringing the same reactions that their body once felt. At certain levels one is reliving an event that has already happened, whether directly experienced or witnessed through someone else. Those experiences lived in VR, to be felt as real as it is, they are closer to memory and real life, so eventually the emotions one feels is through reactivating that memory. At the end, it doesn’t matter if is virtual or physical. “The virtual is as profane as the physical, as both are constituted ‘digitally’ in their mutual relationship.” (Boellstorf, Miller, Horst, Digital Anthropology, 2012, p. 40). The human brain makes those connections, and we consider ourselves closer to reality as possible.

 

 

The experiment proposed, was to research and analyze why and to what extend do we feel and how do we get emotionally triggered by an experience in virtual reality. It’s not possible summarize the entire range of emotions and feelings and triggers that affect humans while we experience in VR, in a boxed reasoning. It’s the collective factors that culminate in our feelings, and what we experience can vary significantly. Human senses make us experience and have perceptions and interpretations. These are translated from our body and mind often tapping into a memory, triggering that emotion we once felt or anticipated.

We often consider our previous experiences, yet there’s potential to apply the same logic to future experiences, which could be beneficial. If someone is afraid of heights for instance, or spiders, we could potentially and gradually on a controlled virtual environment, expose that person to their fears, with the objective of making them less afraid. The importance here is the psychological aspect overseen by a professional, as the opposite is also possible. One could become potentially traumatized through a bad experience in a virtual world.

Not only that, seeing that emotional aspect, we could develop experiences and systems to treat patients that struggle with mental health issues. Panic disorder and depression for instance are potentially damaging to one’s mind, and through the living or reliving or an experience, the symptoms might even be softened, almost like developing vaccines for the mind. On anxiety as an example, the development of multiple causes and scenarios and events, build on VR, might give a sense of tranquility to one that struggles in staying in the present, often thinking on future bad scenarios.

Virtual reality provides a new dimension to explore and enjoy. We already have games, software's, worlds to be experienced, and still we’re trying to make sense of it and understand it's potential. On an emotional level, all that matters is that we can take something positively out of that and we’re able to experience in a controlled environment what we can’t in physical environment. These experiences offer us new sensations. Sometimes, we may not feel anything, yet makes us want to experience certain emotions. Isn’t that fundamentally similar? Doesn’t the ability or, the desire to feel, ultimately makes us more human and connected to reality? To feel is to live, and in today’s world can do that physically or virtually.

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References

Tuan, Yi-Fu, Space and Place The Perspective of Experience, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1977

Miller, Daniel, Horst, Heather, Digital Anthropology, London, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2012

Le Breton, David, Les Passions Ordinaires: Anthropologie Des Émotions, Petropolis, Editora Vozes, 2019

Young, Emma, Super Senses: The Science of Your 32 Senses and How to Use Them, Rio de Janeiro, Editora Best Seller, 2021

Mauss, Marcel, Rapports Réels et Pratiques de la Psychologie et de la Sociologie, São Paulo, Edusp, 2018

Turner, Fred, From Counterculture to Cyberculture, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 2006

Jenkins, Henry, Ito, Mizuko, Boyd, Danah, Participatory Culture in a Network Era, Cambridge, Polity Press, 2016

Higgs, Eric, Light, Andrew, Strong, David. Technology and The Good Life?, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 2000

Ginsburg, Faye, Abu-Lughod, Lila, Larkin, Brian. Media Worlds Anthropology on New Terrain, Los Angeles, University of California Press, 2002