Neuroscience of VR

A forthcoming book about the brain science underlying immersive, effective, and compelling VR experiences, by @beaucronin

[Neuroscience of VR @NeuroVR]

How the brain (might) encode large-scale three dimensional space - excellent review paper http://t.co/diOkUrCio8

[Neuroscience of VR @NeuroVR]

"some subjects can smoothly track their own outstretched finger while in darkness, probably using [efference copy] and [reafference]" Cool.

[Neuroscience of VR @NeuroVR]

@jaybowles_ Yes! And must trade off between many different goals and systems, from basic reflexes to highly conscious behaviors.

[Neuroscience of VR @NeuroVR]

also: it's very hard to read about how ocular muscles fire to control saccades w/o being very conscious of it happening & very distracted

[Neuroscience of VR @NeuroVR]

@jaybowles_ very easy to fall into the homuncular fallacy. the eye doesn't "decide" anything, right?

[Neuroscience of VR @NeuroVR]

@jaybowles_ the point is that, if we're being careful, it's not a good idea to think of the eye as something separate from rest of system

[Neuroscience of VR @NeuroVR]

The standard claim is that saccades are all about the fovea, but couldn't they also serve to sample the environment for peripheral vision?

[Neuroscience of VR @NeuroVR]

"Normal saccades only appear to be ballistic because of their high velocities and brief durations." Leigh & Zee, 5/e

[Neuroscience of VR @NeuroVR]

@jaybowles_ I'm not sure that #2 is necessarily a "signal to the eye" per se

[Neuroscience of VR @NeuroVR]

"Saccades are not truly ballistic, because they can be modified in mid-flight by factors presented just before the eye starts to move." Huh.

[Neuroscience of VR @NeuroVR]

"The visual system is not surprised by eye movements because it receives a warning signal about each one." i.e., Corollary Discharge

[Neuroscience of VR @NeuroVR]

more I think about it, more it seems super weird to track head but not eye movements - in the visual system, they're very tightly integrated

[Neuroscience of VR @NeuroVR]

gorgeous: the connections b/w the semi-circular canals & ocular muscles - these drive the vestibulo-ocular reflex

[Neuroscience of VR @NeuroVR]

@itsjasonblack but the feedback aspect is emphasized in haptics. Yet vision is more like touch than taking a picture- we reach w our eyes

[Neuroscience of VR @NeuroVR]

Why do we call it "haptic feedback", but not "visual feedback"? Vision is also tightly responsive to our actions - it's just harder to tell

[Neuroscience of VR @NeuroVR]

"near reflex triad" sounds like a particularly nerdy street gang

(it's actually vergence, accommodation, and pupillary restriction)

[Neuroscience of VR @NeuroVR]

"only highly trained observers can make a smooth pursuit movement in the absence of a moving target" http://t.co/q8wB9wBGyA

[Neuroscience of VR @NeuroVR]

Really looking forward to @kentbye's reports from #IEEEVR

[Neuroscience of VR @NeuroVR]

The Voices of VR podcast with creators of Luckey's Tale exactly captures the process I want to accelerate and inform http://t.co/dHMPVCC66g

[Neuroscience of VR @NeuroVR]

I may need to collapse what was gonna be two chapters into one long one. This is so different from typical treatments. Good sign, I suppose.