Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Virtual reality in behavioral neuroscience and beyond

  • Review Article
  • Published:

From Nature Neuroscience

View current issue Submit your manuscript

Abstract

Virtual reality (VR) has finally come of age for serious applications in the behavioral neurosciences. After capturing the public imagination a decade ago, enthusiasm for VR flagged due to hardware limitations, an absent commercial market and manufacturers who dropped the mass-market products that normally drive technological development. Recently, however, improvements in computer speed, quality of head-mounted displays and wide-area tracking systems have made VR attractive for both research and real-world applications in neuroscience, cognitive science and psychology. New and exciting applications for VR have emerged in research, training, rehabilitation, teleoperation, virtual archeology and tele-immersion.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Figure 1: The VENLab at Brown University is a 40' × 40' immersive virtual reality space.
Figure 2: The virtual environments presented in the VENLab provide a feeling of total immersion.
Figure 3: An example of a complex 'secret garden' virtual environment created to study the mental representation of cognitive maps in humans.
Figure 4: Two users explore neural anatomy and the connectivity of the human brain using virtual reality (in a CAVE at Brown University).

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Gibson, J.J. The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception 3 (Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1979).

    Google Scholar 

  2. Spiro, J.E. Going with the (virtual) flow. Nat. Neurosci. 4, 120 (2001).

  3. Foley, J.D. Interfaces for advanced computing. Sci. Am. 257, 126–135 (1987).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Lanier, J. Virtually there. Sci. Am. 284, 66–75 (2001).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Hafner, K. Real queasiness in virtual reality. The New York Times, November 19, 1998.

    Google Scholar 

  6. Aginsky, V., Harris, C., Rensink, R. & Beusmans, J. Two strategies for learning a route in a driving simulator. J. Environmental Psychol. 17, 317–331 (1997).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. van Veen, H.A., Distler, H.K., Braun, S.J. & Bulthoff, H.H. Navigating through a virtual city: using virtual reality technology to study human action and perception. Future Generation Computer Systems 14, 231–242 (1998).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Cruz-Neira, C., Sandin, D., DeFanti, T., Kenyon, R. & Hart, J. The CAVE—audio visual experience automatic virtual environment. Communications ACM 35, 65–72 (1992).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Loomis, J.M., Blascovich, J.J. & Beall, A.C. Immersive virtual environment technology as a basic research tool in psychology. Behav. Res. Methods Instruments Computers 31, 557–564 (1999).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Warren, W.H. & Hannon, D.J. Direction of self-motion is perceived from optical flow. Nature 336, 162–163 (1988).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Warren, W.H., Kay, B.A., Zosh, W.D., Duchon, A.P. & Sahuc, S. Optic flow is used to control human walking. Nat. Neurosci. 4, 213–216 (2001).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Kearns, M.J., Warren, W.H., Duchon, A.P. & Tarr, M.J. Path integration from optic flow and body senses in a homing task. Perception 31, 349–347 (2002).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Riva, G., Wiederhold, B.K. & Molinari, E.E. (eds.) Virtual Environments in Clinical Psychology and Neuroscience (Ios, Amsterdam, 1998).

    Google Scholar 

  14. Virtual reality aid for schizophrenia. BBC News Online, Health. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2066973.stm (June 26, 2002).

  15. North, M.N., North, S.M. & Coble, J.R. in Virtual Environments in Clinical Psychology and Neuroscience (eds. Riva, G., Wiederhold, B. K. & Molinari, E.) 112–119 (Ios, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1998).

    Google Scholar 

  16. North, M.M., North, S.M. & Coble, J.R. Virtual environment psychotherapy: a case study of fear of flying disorder. PRESENCE, Teleoperators Virtual Environments 6, 127–132 (1997).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. North, M.M., North, S.M. & Coble, J.R. Effectiveness of virtual environment desensitization in the treatment of agoraphobia. PRESENCE: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments 5, 346–352 (1996).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Riva, G. in Virtual Environments in Clinical Psychology and Neuroscience (eds. Riva, G., Wiederhold, B. K. & Molinari, E.) 191–199 (Ios, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1998).

    Google Scholar 

  19. Serruya, M.D., Hatsopoulos, N.G., Paninski, L., Fellows, M.R. & Donoghue, J.P. Brain-machine interface: instant neural control of a movement signal. Nature 416, 141–142 (2002).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  20. Vote, E., Acevedo, D., Laidlaw, D.H. & Joukowsky, M. Discovering Petra: archaeological analysis in VR. IEEE Comput. Graphics Applications 22, 38–50 (2002).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Wanke, L.A. & DuBose, R.F. Designer drugs: the evolving science of drug discovery. Pharm. Pract. Manag. Q. 18, 13–22 (1998).

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  22. Zhang, S., Demiralp, Ç. & Laidlaw, D.H. Visualizing diffusion tensor MR images using streamtubes and streamsurfaces. IEEE Trans. Visualization Comput. Graphics (in press).

Download references

Acknowledgements

The VENLab was funded by a Learning and Intelligent Systems (LIS) award from the National Science Foundation (IRI-9720327) to W.H.W., M.J.T. and L.P. Kaelbling (now at M.I.T.). We thank the students and postdocs who have collaborated with us on the VENLab over the years and D. Laidlaw for his contributions to this article.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Cognitive & Linguistic Sciences and Brain Science Program, Brown University, Providence, 02912, Rhode Island, USA

    Michael J. Tarr & William H. Warren

Authors
  1. Michael J. Tarr
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. William H. Warren
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Tarr, M., Warren, W. Virtual reality in behavioral neuroscience and beyond. Nat Neurosci 5 (Suppl 11), 1089–1092 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn948

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nn948

  • Springer Nature America, Inc.

This article is cited by

Search

Navigation