Virtual reality users must learn to use what they see

Anyone with normal vision knows that a ball that seems to quickly be growing larger is probably going to hit them on the nose. But strap them into a virtual reality headset, and they still may need to take a few lumps before they pay attention to the visual cues that work so well in the real world, according to a new study from University of Wisconsin-Madison psychologists. "The companies leading the virtual reality revolution have solved major engineering challenges - how do you build a small headset that does a good job presenting images of a virtual world," says Bas Rokers, UW-Madison psychology professor. "But they have not thought as much about how the brain processes these images. How do people perceive a virtual world?" Turns out, they don't perceive it like the real world - at least not without training, according a study Rokers and postdoctoral psychology researcher Jacqueline Fulvio published recently Scientific Reports. In 2015, Fulvio found that people were flunking her simple test of three-dimensional perception using a flat screen and standard 3D movie glasses. They were not good at discerning which direction a target was moving.