Are parrots naive realists? Kea behave as if the real and virtual worlds are continuous

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (9) ◽  
Author(s):  
Amalia P. M. Bastos ◽  
Patrick M. Wood ◽  
Alex H. Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Environments ◽  
Virtual Worlds ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Animal Species ◽  
Animal Cognition ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Nonhuman Animal ◽  
Physical Processes ◽  
The Real ◽  
As If

Human psychology and animal cognition have increasingly used virtual stimuli to test cognitive abilities, with the expectation that participants are ‘naive realists’, that is, that they perceive virtual environments as both equivalent and continuous with real-life equivalents. However, there have been no attempts to investigate whether nonhuman subjects in fact behave as if physical processes in the virtual and real worlds are continuous. As kea parrots have previously shown the ability to transfer knowledge between real stimuli and both images on paper and images on touchscreens, here we test whether kea behave as naive realists and so expect physical processes to be continuous between the physical and virtual worlds. We find that, unlike infants, kea do not discriminate between these two contexts, and that they do not exhibit a preference for either. Our findings therefore validate the use of virtual stimuli as a powerful tool for testing the cognition of nonhuman animal species.

The Trajectivity of Virtual Worlds

2018 ◽  
pp. 4296-4305
Author(s):  
Christophe Duret
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Environments ◽  
Virtual Environment ◽  
Virtual Worlds ◽  
Second Life ◽  
New Approach ◽  
The Real ◽  
The Way

This chapter will propose an ontology of virtual environments that calls into question the dichotomy between the real and the virtual. This will draw on the concepts of trajectivity and ‘médiance' in order to describe the way virtual environments, with their technological and symbolic features, take part in the construction of human environments. This theoretical proposition will be illustrated with the analysis of Arcadia, a virtual environment built in Second Life. Finally, a mesocriticism will be proposed as a new approach for the study of virtual environments.

Applied Training in Virtual Environments

2011 ◽  
pp. 928-940
Author(s):  
Ken Hudson
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Environments ◽  
Virtual Worlds ◽  
Second Life ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Border Crossing ◽  
Corporate Education ◽  
Training Experience ◽  
Training Environment ◽  
Training Project ◽  
Carry Over

Virtual worlds hold enormous promise for corporate education and training. From distributed collaboration that facilitates participation at a distance, to allowing trainees to experience dangerous situations first-hand without threat to personal safety, virtual worlds are a solution that offers benefits for a multitude of applications. While related to videogames, virtual worlds have different parameters of interaction that make them useful for specific location or open-ended instructional exchanges. Research suggests that participants identify quickly with roles and situations they encounter in virtual environments, that they experience virtual interactions as real events, and that those experiences carry over into real life. This paper will evaluate the attributes of a successful applied training project, the Canadian border simulation at Loyalist College, conducted in the virtual world Second Life. This simulated border crossing is used to teach port of entry interview skills to students at the college, whose test scores, engagement level, and motivation have increased substantially by utilizing this training environment. The positive results of this training experience led the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) to pilot the border environment for agency recruits, with comparable results. By analyzing the various elements of this simulation, and examining the process with which it was used in the classroom, a set of best practices emerge that have wide applicability to corporate training.

Eidsvoll 1814

2011 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ekaterina Prasolova-Forland ◽  
Ole Ørjan Hov
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Environments ◽  
Virtual Worlds ◽  
Second Life ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Critical Discussion ◽  
Practical Reasons ◽  
Historical Building ◽  
Constituent Assembly ◽  
Future Work

3D Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVEs) or virtual worlds have been widely used in educational settings for the purposes of simulation and demonstration of scientific concepts, art and historical events that for practical reasons may be complicated in real-life classrooms. This paper describes an experience of recreating a central event in Norwegian history, adoption of Norwegian constitution at Eidsvoll in 1814, in the virtual world of Second Life. The historical building where this event took place was reconstructed and used as a part of an online history course where Norwegian students residing all over the world could meet at Virtual Eidsvoll, play the role of the members of the Constituent Assembly and pass the constitution. Following the description of the experience with the Virtual Eidsvoll project, the authors conclude with a critical discussion of using 3D CVEs for history education, outlining directions for future work.

scholarly journals Making Science Fiction Real: Neoliberalism, Real-Life and Esports in Eve Online

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Richard Johnson ◽  
Robert Mejia
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Virtual Worlds ◽  
Real World ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Physical World ◽  
The Real ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Neoliberal Capitalism ◽  
Political Economic

In this paper, we argue that EVE Online is a fruitful site for exploring how the representational and political-economic elements of science fiction intersect to exert a sociocultural and political-economic force on the shape and nature of the future-present. EVE has been oft heralded for its economic and sociocultural complexity, and for employing a free market ethos and ethics in its game world. However, we by contrast seek not to consider how EVE reflects our contemporary world, but rather how our contemporary neoliberal milieu reflects EVE. We explore how EVE works to make its world of neoliberal markets and borderline anarcho-capitalism manifest through the political economic and sociocultural assemblages mobilized beyond the game. We explore the deep intertwining of  behaviors of players both within and outside of the game, demonstrating that EVE promotes neoliberal  activity in its players, encourages these behaviors outside the game, and that players who have found success in the real world of neoliberal capitalism are those best-positioned for success in the time-demanding and resource-demanding world of EVE. This thereby sets up a reciprocal ideological determination between the real and virtual worlds of EVE players, whereby each reinforces the other. We lastly consider the “Alliance Tournament” event, which romanticizes conflict and competition, and argue that it serves as a crucial site for deploying a further set of similar rhetorical resources. The paper therefore offers an understanding of the sociocultural and political-economic pressure exerted on the “physical” world by the intersection of EVE’s representational and material elements, and what these show us about the real-world ideological power of science fictional worlds.

scholarly journals Empatia, antropomorfismo e cognição animal

2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 423
Author(s):  
Silvia Carolina Scotto
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Animal Species ◽  
Animal Cognition ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Evolutionary Explanation ◽  
Transcendental Argument ◽  
Theoretical Hypothesis ◽  
Ordinary Point

http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/1808-1711.2015v19n3p423In this paper I argue that attributions of certain cognitive abilities to some animal species, based on inter-species empathy, are supported on a presupposition according to which those animal species are minded creatures. This implicit premise gives support to a “transcendental” argument, based on empathy, in favor of animal cognition, that justifies the anthropomorphic character of ordinary psychological attributions. Furthermore, abundant empirical grounds and theoretical hypothesis explain the nature and the adaptive functions of empathy and anthropomorphism, shaping a complementary “cognitive-evolutive” argument. The two faces of this “empathic argument”, the trascendental and the empirical one, strengthen the idea of a line of relative continuity between our ordinary point of view about us and our ordinary point of view about some animal species, that is founded on the existence of a line of continuity between species, and therefore, on an evolutionary explanation of these socio-cognitive basic abilities.

The Trajectivity of Virtual Worlds

2019 ◽  
pp. 633-643
Author(s):  
Christophe Duret
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Environments ◽  
Virtual Environment ◽  
Virtual Worlds ◽  
Second Life ◽  
New Approach ◽  
The Real ◽  
The Way

This chapter will propose an ontology of virtual environments that calls into question the dichotomy between the real and the virtual. This will draw on the concepts of trajectivity and “médiance” in order to describe the way virtual environments, with their technological and symbolic features, take part in the construction of human environments. This theoretical proposition will be illustrated with the analysis of Arcadia, a virtual environment built in Second Life. Finally, a meso-criticism will be proposed as a new approach for the study of virtual environments.

Using a Blueprint in the Design of Instruction for Virtual Environments

2012 ◽  
pp. 255-267
Author(s):  
Mauri Collins
Keyword(s):  
Instructional Design ◽  
Informal Learning ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Virtual Environments ◽  
Transfer Learning ◽  
Virtual Worlds ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Computer Screen ◽  
Formal And Informal Learning ◽  
Affective Components

Other chapters in this book discuss the design and development of interfaces for virtual worlds. This chapter will discuss the instructional design aspects of designing learning in virtual worlds. The use of virtual worlds is a relatively new phenomenon in education and, like many innovations that have preceded them, they are a new and intriguing tool to be mastered by both student and instructor alike. While bounded by a computer screen, virtual worlds have many of the affective components of everyday life and familiar-looking environments, where real life rules pertain, can be created to transfer learning, and both formal and informal learning can take place (Jones & Bronack, 2007).

Virtual borders: The interdependence of real and virtual worlds

First Monday ◽  
2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Grimmelmann
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Worlds ◽  
Real World ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Real Money ◽  
The Real ◽  
Online Spaces ◽  
The Law

The flourishing trade of virtual items for real–life money suggests that virtual worlds will sometimes welcome the intervention of real–life law. At first glance, this possibility seems to undermine the Law and Borders thesis that online spaces should enjoy independence from real–life law. These ideas are compatible, however, because they start from a common premise: that these new communities are developing their own distinctive values. The lesson of the real–money trade is that preserving those values requires recognizing the interdependence of virtual worlds and the real world.

Immersive Educational Systems With Procedure-Oriented Combinations of Real and Virtual Environments

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhou Zhang ◽  
Shaojin Zhang ◽  
Mingshao Zhang ◽  
Sven K. Esche
Keyword(s):  
Object Recognition ◽  
Object Tracking ◽  
Virtual Environments ◽  
Virtual Environment ◽  
Virtual Worlds ◽  
Planetary Gear ◽  
Gear Train ◽  
Laboratory System ◽  
The Real ◽  
Specific Implementation

Virtual reality (VR) is becoming increasingly popular in educational applications, but insufficient users’ feel of immersion often slows the further adoption of VR. Many solutions with a focus on the results rather than the details of the interactions between the objects in the real and virtual worlds have been developed. Therefore, the real procedures are distorted and the users lose their perception of in-person participation. In order to improve the users’ feel of immersion further and to simulate more realistic operations in VR, a procedure-oriented approach for the combination of real and virtual environments is proposed here. As its name implies, this approach emphasizes the details of the procedures, namely how to capture, track, operate and interoperate the real and virtual objects in a mixed environment. In order to illustrate this idea, a prototype of mixed real and virtual assembly, in con-junction with object recognition and rigid-object tracking functions based on robotic vision techniques, is presented as an example. This prototype is designed based on a game-based virtual laoratory system, and the specific implementation is a planetary gear train experiment. In this experiment, all models of the parts with the information required for the assembly are created, labeled and added to the database of the virtual laboratory system. The physical parts are marked in order to facilitate object recognition and object tracking. During the experiment, the main assembly with one missing planetary gear is accomplished in a purely virtual environment. In the real world, the missing planetary gear is tracked by a Kinect while the user is manipulating this gear. Then, the system recognizes this gear based on the markers and couples the corresponding virtual model of that gear with the avatar’s hand in the virtual environment. Afterward, the cam-era tracks the real part, and the user can adjust its pose and location to finish the final assembly. The main benefit of this implementation is that the user can take advantage of some simple real parts in conjunction with virtual models of sophisticated parts in order to get realistic experience with the assembly process.

scholarly journals Learning outcome, presence and satisfaction from a science activity in Second Life

2016 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ioannis Vrellis ◽  
Nikolaos Avouris ◽  
Tassos A. Mikropoulos
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Environments ◽  
Information And Communication Technologies ◽  
Virtual Worlds ◽  
Real World ◽  
Second Life ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Learning Outcome ◽  
The Real ◽  
Information And Communication ◽  
Informal Learning Environment

Although problem-based learning (PBL) has many advantages, it often fails to connect to the real world outside the classroom. The integration with the laboratory setting and the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) have been proposed to address this deficiency. Multi-user virtual environments (MUVEs) like Second Life (SL) are 3D collaborative virtual environments that could act as complementary or alternative worlds for the implementation of laboratory PBL activities offering low-cost, safe, and always available environments. The aim of this study was to compare a simple laboratory PBL activity implemented in both the real and virtual worlds, in terms of learning outcome, satisfaction, and presence. The sample consisted of 150 undergraduate university students. The results show that the MUVE provided similar learning outcome and satisfaction to the real-world condition. Presence was positively correlated to satisfaction but not to the learning outcome. Finally, there are indications that the MUVE was perceived as more pleasurable and informal learning environment, while reality was perceived as more stressful.

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