Virtual reality and the new psychophysics

Virtual reality (VR) promises methodological rigour with the extra benefit of allowing us to study the context-dependent behaviour of individuals in their natural environment. Pan and Hamilton (2018, Br. J. Psychol.) provide a useful overview of methodological recommendations for using VR. Here, we highlight some other aspects of the use of VR. Our first argument is that VR can be useful by virtue of its differences from the normal perceptual environment. That is, by virtue of its relative non-realism and poverty of its perceptual elements, it can actually offer increased clarity with respect to the features of interest for the researcher. Our second argument is that VR exerts its measurable influence more by eliciting an acceptance of the virtual world (i.e., ‘suspension of disbelief’) rather than by eliciting a true belief of the realism of the VR environment. We conclude by providing a novel suggestion for combining neuroimaging methods with embodied VR that relies on the suspension of disbelief.     

Space Trumps Time When Talking About Objects

The nature of the relationship between the concepts of space and time in the human mind is much debated. Some claim that space is primary and that it structures time (cf. Lakoff & Johnson, 1980) while others (cf. Walsh, 2003) maintain no difference in status between them. Using fully immersive virtual reality (VR), we examined the influence of object distance and time of appearance on choice of demonstratives (this and that) to refer to objects. Critically, demonstratives can be used spatially (this/that red triangle) and temporally (this/that month). Experiment 1 showed a pattern of demonstrative usage in VR that is consistent with results found in real‐world studies. Experiments 2, 3, and 4 manipulated both when and where objects appeared, providing scenarios where participants were free to use demonstratives in either a temporal or spatial sense. Although we find evidence for time of presentation affecting object mention, the experiments found that demonstrative choice was affected only by distance. These results support the view that spatial uses of demonstratives are privileged over temporal uses.     

Reading between the Strata: Teaching Rabbinic Literature with Material Culture

This article argues that attention to material culture can enhance teaching classical rabbinic literature (Talmud, Midrash, and related Jewish texts from the first seven centuries C.E.) at universities. Following an examination of broader scholarship on teaching and learning on using visuals, this article explores four ways in which material culture can help instructors teach rabbinics to students without background in Jewish studies or the relevant languages (Hebrew, Aramaic). It builds upon teaching other areas of biblical and religious studies (Hebrew Bible, New Testament, and teaching rabbinics at liberal seminaries), research methods, and broader scholarship on using visuals and material culture for pedagogical purposes. Contributing to these fields, this article addresses a lacuna in research on teaching rabbinic literature at secular institutions of higher learning and models ways to bring material culture into religious studies classrooms.     

Everyday‐like memory for objects in ageing and Alzheimer's disease assessed in a visually complex environment: The role of executive functioning and episodic memory

To investigate everyday memory, more and more studies rely on virtual‐reality applications to bridge the gap between in situ approaches and laboratory settings. In this vein, the present study was designed to assess everyday‐like memory from the virtual reality‐based Human Object Memory for Everyday Scenes (HOMES) test (Sauzéon et al., 2012 , Exp. Psychol., 59, 99) in ageing and in Alzheimer's disease (AD). Two aims motivated this study: the first was to assess multiple processes of episodic memory (EM) functioning embedded within contexts closely related to real life in ageing and AD using the multi‐trial free‐recall paradigm, and the second aim was to evaluate the mediating effects of executive functioning (EF), EM, and subjective memory complaints (SMCs) on age differences in the HOMES measures and in AD. To this end, the HOMES test and neurocognitive tests of EF and EM were administered to 23 younger adults, 23 older adults, and 16 patients with AD. The results were: firstly, compared to young adults, elderly adults presented only free‐recall decline that almost disappeared in recognition condition whereas AD patients exhibited a poor clustering, learning, and recognition performance, and also a high amount of false recognition; secondly, age differences as well as AD related deficits on the HOMES test were mediated by both memory and EF measure while those observed on false memory indices were only mediated by EM measure; thirdly, the HOMES indices are related to SMCs even when episodic or EF measures are controlled. Overall, the results supported the fact that the VR‐based memory test is an appropriate device to capture age‐related differences as well as the AD effect with respect to both in situ and laboratory settings.     

Influence of bidirectional perspective on learning routes and spatial layout

The capacity to remain spatially oriented is an essential function in our day to day lives and it seems that the form in which we acquire the spatial information affects the way in which the spatial knowledge is represented in our memory. The goal of this research was to investigate whether the acquisition of spatial information through the learning of three routes within an immersive environment was improved or impaired when participants have access to the backward perspective in addition to the forward perspective. Results, both in reproduction and drawing tasks, showed a poorer performance of the bidirectional group maybe due to the extra-effort involved in updating the spatial information trial by trial. However it seems that the experience enhanced the performance of the bidirectional group in one respect, as they were able to reduce significantly the number of error directions in the last path.     

The Virtual Universe, the Open Large Group, and Maturational Processes in the Future

The technology of the future will bring a new, world-wide, interactive but virtual social experience to our parlors and desktops in place of face-to-face relationships. Governments will stand or fall on the basis of electronically mediated communication with masses of people. Adventures in this new open large group context in the outer world, and the maturation of our inner selves may mirror as well as contribute to each other. Small group experience and group therapy, in particular, may play a vital role.     

Effects of Age on Dual-Task Walking While Listening

This study examined the effects of age on single- and dual-task listening and walking during virtual street crossing. Seventeen younger and 12 older adults participated. In each listening trial, three sentences were presented simultaneously from separate locations. Participants were instructed to report the target sentence. Predictability of the target sentence location was varied. Treadmill walking was measured using motion analysis. Measures included word recognition accuracy, head and trunk angles, and spatiotemporal gait parameters. Older adults exhibited a more upright head alignment and less variability in stride time during dual-tasking, particularly under less certain target sentence location conditions. Younger adults’ walking was unaffected by dual-task demands. Together, the results indicate greater postural prioritization in older adults than young.     

Goal-directed aiming under restricted viewing conditions with confirmatory sensory feedback

A substantial body of research has examined the speed-accuracy tradeoff captured by Fitts’ law, demonstrating increases in movement time that occur as aiming tasks are made more difficult by decreasing target width and/or increasing the distance between targets. Yet, serial aiming movements guided by internal spatial representations, rather than by visual views of targets have not been examined in this manner, and the value of confirmatory feedback via different sensory modalities within this paradigm is unknown. Here we examined goal-directed serial aiming movements (tapping back and forth between two targets), wherein targets were visually unavailable during the task. However, confirmatory feedback (auditory, haptic, visual, and bimodal combinations of each) was delivered upon each target acquisition, in a counterbalanced, within-subjects design. Each participant performed the aiming task with their pointer finger, represented within an immersive virtual environment as a 1 cm white sphere, while wearing a head-mounted display. Despite visual target occlusion, movement times increased in accordance with Fitts’ law. Though Fitts’ law captured performance for each of the sensory feedback conditions, the slopes differed. The effect of increasing difficulty on movement times was least influential in the haptic condition, suggesting more efficient processing of confirmatory haptic feedback during aiming movements guided by internal spatial representations.     

Still People of the Book A History of the Church in 100 Objects,Mike Aquilina and Grace Aquilina,Ave Maria, 2017 (ISBN 978‐1‐59471‐750‐5), 448 pp., pb $24.95

The recent turn to ‘material religion’ in the academic study of religion offers a new opportunity for scholars and practitioners to take the embodied, devotional lives of adherents seriously. In their new book, A History of the Church in 100 Objects, Mike and Grace Aquilina might be productively read as responding to this new openness on the part of scholars by presenting Roman Catholic history as told through those objects that have guided the practices of the faithful. Despite their protestations to the contrary, however, the story that they tell is still mostly determined by the authoritative interpretation of sacred texts instead of ordinary interactions with sacred objects.