Virtual and Physical Realities: Violent Extremists’ Recruitment of Individuals Associated with the US Military

Smith and Smitherson’s Theatre of the Absurd

Objective of the study: The research aims at exploring the way of interaction between virtual and physical reality and defining the approaches to analyze consequences of the virtuality penetration to the real world or vice versa.Methodology / approach: We apply a game theoretic method based on payoff matrix to show the essence of interaction between virtual and physical worlds; an internalization approach for solving optimization problem; graphical visualization of the interaction by using cones movement approach and analysis of cost functions to develop an equation of the city’s economy and to rebuild a model of optimal city size.Originality / Relevance: The majority of economic approaches have a linear-minded nature and only some take into account technological aspect. We state that the solution lies in consideration the costs as function of positive and negative exponential externalities. The proposed cost-based approach allows finding the optimal distribution of the time staying in the virtual and physical space.Main results: Obtained results of the research proved the following assumptions: interaction with new reality has changed us; a human is irrational in absolute majority; virtuality is a threat and an opportunity to the human. We confirmed that the nature of interaction between physical and virtual reality should takes the form of cooperation to ensure the mankind development.Theoretical / methodological contributions: It is one of the first attempts to develop economic theories and methods by extending them with variables of virtual reality.Social / management contributions: The study presents a broader view on human who exists on the fringes of physical and virtual reality.

The metaverse represents a paradigm shift in digital interaction, blending physical and virtual realities into interconnected, immersive, and persistent digital environments. Leveraging technologies such as virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI), and cloud computing, the metaverse aims to redefine human experiences across diverse domains. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the metaverse's evolution, its technological foundations, and its vast potential applications in education, healthcare, entertainment, commerce, and the future of work. By facilitating global connectivity, decentralized economies, and innovative platforms for collaboration and creativity, the metaverse emerges as a transformative force with far-reaching societal and economic implications. However, alongside its opportunities, the metaverse introduces significant challenges, including issues of accessibility, ethical governance, data privacy, cybersecurity, and the widening digital divide. The paper explores these challenges in depth, emphasizing the need for sustainable infrastructure, inclusivity, and regulatory frameworks to ensure equitable access and responsible development. Additionally, it highlights the psychological and social considerations of prolonged virtual engagement and the necessity of balancing virtual and physical realities. By critically analyzing these factors, this review provides insights into the metaverse's role as a catalyst for innovation and its potential to reshape human interaction, economic systems, and cultural exchange on a global scale.

The promise of virtual reality (VR) as a tool for perceptual and cognitive research rests on the assumption that perception in virtual environments generalizes to the real world. Here, we conducted two experiments to compare size and distance perception between VR and physical reality (Maltz et al. 2021 J. Vis. 21, 1-18). In experiment 1, we used VR to present dice and Rubik's cubes at their typical sizes or reversed sizes at distances that maintained a constant visual angle. After viewing the stimuli binocularly (to provide vergence and disparity information) or monocularly, participants manually estimated perceived size and distance. Unlike physical reality, where participants relied less on familiar size and more on presented size during binocular versus monocular viewing, in VR participants relied heavily on familiar size regardless of the availability of binocular cues. In experiment 2, we demonstrated that the effects in VR generalized to other stimuli and to a higher quality VR headset. These results suggest that the use of binocular cues and familiar size differs substantially between virtual and physical reality. A deeper understanding of perceptual differences is necessary before assuming that research outcomes from VR will generalize to the real world. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'New approaches to 3D vision'.

Comparison of Virtual Reality Versus Physical Reality on Movement Characteristics of Persons With Parkinson's Disease: Effects of Moving Targets

Trunk–arm coordination in reaching for moving targets in people with Parkinson’s disease: Comparison between virtual and physical reality

The Medical Metaverse, Part 1: Introduction, Definitions, and New Horizons for Neuropsychiatry.

There remains a question about whether and to what extent perception–action coupled response in virtual reality are equal/unequal to those in the real world or physical reality. The purpose of this study was to identify the differences in the environmental effect of virtual presentation on the motor responses of a one-handed ball catching. Thirteen healthy participants were instructed to catch an approaching ball projected at three speeds in a real laboratory room and in a room-sized virtual reality system (CAVE) that simulated those real situations with two- or three-dimensional display settings. The results showed that the arm movement time, which denotes the duration of arm-raising motion (shoulder flexion), was significantly longer in the virtual reality than that in the physical reality at the fast ball speed condition. The shoulder flexion velocities, calculated as the average angular velocity of shoulder flexion over the arm movement time, were significantly lower in the virtual reality than in the physical reality at the medium and fast ball speed conditions. The electromyography onsets, derived from anterior deltoid, biceps brachii, and flexor carpi radialis muscles of the catching arm, appeared before and significantly closer to the initiation of arm raising in the two-dimensional virtual reality than both in the physical reality and in the three-dimensional virtual reality. The findings suggest that simulation of virtual reality may induce a modulation in the motor responses of the catching arm, which is different from natural motion that appeared in the real world. On the contrary, the effect of ball speed generally found in real setting was maintained in the current CAVE experiment.

Recently emerging paradigms of the so called Future Internet induce significant changes in consumer and industrial ICT applications. Remote collaboration in mixed physical and virtual realities made possible thanks to the increasing network bandwidth further empowered by the achievements of Internet of Things, Cloud Computing and Internet of Services. This enticing vision brings benefits for several application fields ranging from STEM education to smart factories. The paper discusses some new possibilities through the VirCA (Virtual Collaboration Arena) framework as a pilot realization. A brief introduction is given to VirCA focusing on the basic concepts and features that make it well suited for collaborative work in mixed virtual and physical reality. Through a concrete life-like example, the paper illustrates the way of involving real industrial devices into remote collaboration scenarios and reviews the typical uses of such a shared infrastructure considering the relationship of the virtual and real entities.

Virtual environments are increasingly being used for upper limb rehabilitation in post-stroke patients. However, still there is no clear evidence that the movements performed in virtual reality are comparable to those performed in the physical world from the kinematic point-of-view. The goal of the proposed study is thus to determine if aimed reaching movements made in a 3D ecological and immersive virtual environment – displayed through a Head Mounted Display (HMD) – are comparable to movements performed in the real world. The study foresees the realization of two comparable environmental settings representing the shelf of a supermarket. Three different groups of subjects (healthy young adults, healthy elderly, and post-stroke subjects, n=15 each) are asked to reach 5 times toward 9 targets in 3 different conditions: virtual reality, physical reality, and physical reality while holding a controller. Their movements are tracked with a stereo-photogrammetric motion capture system; movement times, peak velocities, and joint angles are then extracted for analysis. This protocol will allow comparing reaching movements, and also excluding of the effects related to holding a controller. A preliminary trial reveled the feasibility of the protocol, thus the experiment will be carried out in the next months. If results will be encouraging, VR should be considered in rehabilitative treatments as a useful means to elicit patients’ motivation, but also appropriate movement synergies, thus promoting a better recovery of upper limb functions.

Past research has shown that humans exhibit certain eye-head responses to the appearance of visual stimuli, and these natural reactions change during different activities. Our work builds upon these past observations by offering new insight to how humans behave in Virtual Reality (VR) compared to Physical Reality (PR). Using eye- and head- tracking technology, and by conducting a study on two groups of users - participants in VR or PR - we identify how often these natural responses are observed in both environments. We find that users statistically move their heads more often when viewing stimuli in VR than in PR, and VR users also move their heads more in the presence of text. We open a discussion for identifying the HWD factors that cause this difference, as this may not only affect predictive models using eye movements as features, but also VR user experience overall.

This paper presents the findings from a comparative study of an architectural space communicated as the space itself and its two different representations, i.e. a virtual reality model and traditional plan and section drawings. Using eye tracking technology in combination with qualitative questionnaires, a case study of an architectural space is investigated in physical reality, a virtual reality 3D BIM model, and finally through representation of the space in plan and section drawings. In this study, the virtual reality scenario seems closer to reality than the experience of the same space experienced through plan and section drawings. There is an overall higher correlation of both the conscious reflections and the less conscious behaviour between the real physical architectural space and the virtual reality space, than there is between the real space and the space communicated through plan and section drawings. We can conclude that the scenario with the best overall size estimations, compared to the actual measures, is the virtual reality scenario. The paper further discusses the future applications of virtual reality in architecture.

Alternative reality (XR) technologies, including physical, augmented, hybrid, and virtual reality, offer ways for engineered spaces to be evaluated. Traditionally, practitioners (such as those designing spacecraft habitats) have relied on physical mockups to perform such design evaluations, but digital XR technologies present several streamlining advantages over their physical counterparts. These digital environments vary in their level of virtuality, and consequently have different effects on human perception and performance, with respect to a completely physical mockup environment. To date, very little has been done to characterize and quantify such differences in human perception and performance across XR environments of equal fidelity for the same end application. Here, we show that perception and performance in the virtual reality environment most closely mirror those in the physical reality environment, as measured through volumetric assessment and functional task experiments. These experiments required subjects to judge the dimensions of 3D objects and perform operational tasks presented via checklists. Our results highlight the potential for virtual reality systems to accelerate the iterative design of engineered spaces relative to the use of physical mockups, while preserving the human perception and performance characteristics of a completely physical environment. These findings also elucidate specific advantages and disadvantages to specific digital XR technologies with respect to one another and the physical reality baseline. Practitioners may inform their selection of an XR modality for their specific end application based on this comparative analysis, as it contextualizes the niche for each technology in the realm of iterative design for engineered spaces.

Simulated reality, such as virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), is particularly helpful for lay people such as clients or prospective occupants, as it allows them to first- hand experience an unbuilt architectural space to provide design input without the requirement of spatial expertise. However, as the experience of space depends on the holistic interplay of a wide variety of atmospheric aspects that cannot be easily simulated, it is still unclear how simulated reality influences lay people when making design decisions. Our study therefore captured how eight lay people designed the interior layout of the same room within five different simulated realities, including drawing reality, tabletop AR, mobile AR, VR and physical reality. By comparing the design process of two design tasks, we assert how each reality promoted or inhibited particular spatial qualities. Consequently, we propose that the realism of a reality influenced how people make design decisions based on atmospheric or functional considerations, the co-location of a reality provokes design decisions that neglect or include contextual factors, the accuracy of distance estimation in a reality depends on the availability of bodily references and the viewing frustum, the ability of a reality to compare design solutions instantaneously trumps the ability to interact with it more intuitively, and each reality comes with particular implementation costs against which the benefits should be estimated and offset. Our study thus provides actionable insights to choose the most appropriate simulated reality depending on the design goals, helps simulated reality developers to consider additional interactive features, and empowers lay people in taking an active part in architectural design.

The modern development of science and new technologies has led to the emergence and spread of new phenomena such as digitalization and virtual reality. Virtualization, as a process of saturating the information and communication space of a digitized society and the objective world of humans with modern technological innovations, virtual images, and simulacra, is perceived ambiguously. Therefore, the study of human existence in the sociocultural space of a digital society, with its new challenges and problems, becomes relevant. The purpose of the article is a sociophilosophical analysis of the phenomenon of virtual reality and its impact on human existence and the processes of social alienation. The methodology of the research is based on the principles of worldview and methodological pluralism, comprehensive study of the multifaceted phenomenon of virtualization; principles of historicism, complexity, objectivity, specificity, systematization, and determinism. General scientific, interdisciplinary, and specific scientific methods are also used. Conclusions and prospects for further research. The article reveals the essence of virtualization and the phenomenon of virtual reality. It is substantiated that in the era of digitalization and global virtual development of the world, the spread of the latest information and communication technologies fundamentally transforms individual and social existence, the structure of modern society, and introduces new forms of social connections, practices, and lifestyles. It is proven that for an increasing number of people, virtual space and virtual reality become more important and significant than physical (real) space and physical reality. The problem of the functioning of the segment of virtual reality related to the sphere of social interaction within so-called virtual communities is described. It is noted that the intensive virtualization of modern society has led to the emergence of fundamentally new methods of human communication, knowledge acquisition, influence on public consciousness, and the search for one's own identity in virtual space.