Avatar; do you know who you are?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Researchers in Spain have demonstrated quite how easy it is to convince someone that a virtual body is actually theirs. The experiment conducted within a real life ‘Avatar’ showed men eliciting fear and emotional connection within minutes of being transferred into the body of a 10 year old girl.

 

The experiment shows quite how easy it is for a virtual reality to supplant our actual reality, and while the it required physical interaction in order to complete the illusion, ‘feedback’ mechanisms being developed will allow direct connection from your computer to your brain to achieve full immersion.

Moreover a previous study at Stanford University showed changes in peoples’ behaviour in the real world when adopting virtual profiles of people taller or shorter than themselves; perhaps a deeper philosophical question Avatar could have posed would have been if the main character’s Avatar was female would he start to feel female?