Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T02:31:06.998Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Harm, Consent, and Virtual Selves in Full-Body Ownership Illusions: Real Concerns for Immersive Virtual Reality Therapies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2020

MARIA BOTERO  and
ELISE WHATLEY
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper analyzes in the use of virtual reality when used to induce full-body ownership in violent offenders in order to elicit empathetic feelings by allowing them to embody the virtual body of a victim of domestic abuse. The authors explore potentially harmful effects to individuals participating in this kind of therapy and question whether consent is fully informed. The paper concludes with guidelines for ethical research and rehabilitation using this innovative technology.

Keywords

virtual realitydomestic abusefull-body ownership
Type
Articles
Information
Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics , Volume 29 , Special Issue 4: Clinical Neuroethics , October 2020 , pp. 585 - 591
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Notes

1. For an overview, see Riva G. Medical clinical uses of virtual worlds. In: The Oxford Handbook of Virtuality. New York: Oxford University Press; 2014: 649–65.

2. When immersed in the VR experience, the patient is intentionally confronted with the feared stimuli while allowing the anxiety to attenuate. With each successive exposure, the patient experiences a reduction in anxiety through the processes of habituation and extinction.

3. Gorini A, Pallavicini F, Algeri D, Repetto C, Gaggioli A, Riva G. Virtual reality in the treatment of generalized anxiety disorders. Studies in Health Technology and Informatics 2010;154:39–43.

4. Kellmeyer P. Neurophilosophical and ethical aspects of virtual reality therapy in neurology and psychiatry. Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 2018;27(4):610–27.

5. Maister L, Slater M, Sanchez-Vives MV, Tsakiris M. Changing bodies changes minds: Owning another body affects social cognition. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 2015;19(1):6–12.

6. Renaud P, Chartier S, Rouleau JL, Proulx J, Goyette M, Trottier D, et al. Using immersive virtual reality and ecological psychology to probe into child molesters’ phenomenology. Journal of Sexual Aggression 2014;18(1):102–20.

7. Slater M, Antley A, Davison A, Swapp D, Guger C, Barker C, et al. A virtual reprise of the Stanley Milgram obedience experiments. PloS One 2006;20(1):e39.

8. Peck TC, Seinfeld S, Aglioti SM, Slater M. Putting yourself in the skin of a black avatar reduces implicit racial bias. Consciousness and Cognition 2013;22(3):779–87.

9. Osimo SA, Pizarro R, Spanlang B, Slater M. Conversations between self and self as Sigmund Freud—A virtual body ownership paradigm for self counselling. Scientific Reports 2015;5:13899.

10. Marsh AA, Blair RJ. Deficits in facial affect recognition among antisocial populations: A meta-analysis. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 2008;32(3):454–65.

11. Parsons TD. Virtual reality for enhanced ecological validity and experimental control in the clinical, affective and social neurosciences. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 2015;9:660.

12. Seinfeld S, Arroyo-Palacios J, Iruretagoyena G, Hortensius R, Zapata LE, Borland D, et al. Offenders become the victim in virtual reality: Impact of changing perspective in domestic violence. Nature Scientific Reports 2018;8(1):2692.

13. Madary M, Metzinger TK. Recommendations for good scientific practice and the consumers of VR-technology. Frontiers in Robotics and AI 2016;3:3.

14. See note 12, Seinfeld et al. 2018, at 7. Italics are mine.

15. Kilteni K, Maselli A, Kording KP, Slater M. Over my fake body: Body ownership illusions for studying the multisensory basis of own-body perception. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 2015;9:141.

16. See note 15, Kilteni et al. 2015.

17. Yee N, Bailenson J. The Proteus effect: The effect of transformed self-representation on behavior. Human Communication Research 2007;33(3):271–90.

18. Martens MA, Antley A, Freeman D, Slater M, Harrison PJ, Tunbridge EM. It feels real: Physiological responses to a stressful virtual reality environment and its impact on working memory. Journal of Psychopharmacology 2019;33(10):1264–73.

19. Bailenson J. Experience on Demand: What Virtual Reality Is, How it Works, and What it Can Do. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.; 2018.

20. Calpito D. ‘GTA V’ in VR might be too real for comfort. Tech Times 2016 Feb; available at http://www.techtimes.com/articles/135159/20160220/gta-v-in-vr-might-be-too-real-for-comfort.htm (last accessed 12 March 2020).

21. See note 19, Bailenson 2018.

22. Chalmers DJ. The virtual and the real. Disputatio 2017;9(46):309–52.

23. Shivayogi P. Vulnerable population and methods for their safeguard. Perspectives in Clinical Research 2013;4(1):53.

24. See note 19, Bailenson 2018.

25. Shivayogi P. Vulnerable population and methods for their safeguard. Perspectives in Clinical Research 2013;4(1):53.