What is Virtual Reality?

Virtual reality is commonly associated with the gaming industry and marketing. However, it is diverging more often into the scientific areas. It has found its use as a compromise between a laboratory and research conducted in a “natural” environment. Use of HMD (Head Mounted Display) – a display mounted on goggles makes it possible to present a given scenario with an ability to look around. This eliminates the possibility that the subject won’t look at the stimulus. Furthermore, it creates a closed environment in which the person examined cannot see nor the researcher nor the entire environment which encourages natural behaviour.

Virtual reality is used in conducting specialized work training. It decreases costs and space needed while simultaneously increasing the number of scenarios to be tested. It is easy to imagine the cost cuts associated with training employees in checking the planes’ chassis using VR instead of having to use a full hangar of different plane models.

In the United States, virtual reality was found to be useful in medicine as a method of easing the pain in extensive burn victims. A similar approach is currently tested in Poland to “distract” younger patients in hospitals during frequent collection of blood samples. Yet another use is supporting depression therapy.

Virtual reality offers a completely new area of research into the way people see themselves. Associating your own movements with the movements of a virtual avatar and the adapting a brain to control a fully virtual, received only visually hand is only possible using a Virtual reality system.