The Introduction to the seminar and the topics assignment will take place Monday, 08.03.2010 from 14.00 to 15.00 in room 3W03. The participation to this meeting is mandatory for all interested students.
The seminar is organized around student seminar presentations and open discussion. The working language of the seminar is English. As a requirement for successful completion of the seminar, students must:
- give a 30 minutes presentation of their assigned seminar topic (including discussion). The seminar participants must send their presentation per email to Ruzica Piskac one week before the seminar date.
- submit a written seminar paper about their assigned seminar topic. The seminar paper must not exceed 10 pages in the Springer LNCS format. The seminar participants must send their presentation per email to Ruzica Piskac before July 15, 2010.
Topics
1) "Virtual Reality: gateway to a happy life?"
- based on the book "The Futurological Congress" by Stanislaw Lem
- students involved: Michael Braun
Abstract: Mostly we try to answer the question, whether a virtual reality as described in the book can assure a higher-quality life. We do it by comparing life in reality and in virtual reality from different point of views, mostly using the environment described in the book. The paper will raise interesting questions and aspects in the societal direction worth investigating. Literature:
- Kay Stanney: "Realizing the Full Potential of Virtual Reality: Human Factors Issues That Could Stand in the Way", University of Central Florida
- Mark Koltko-Rivera: "The Potential Societal Impact of Virtual Reality", Professional Services Group, Inc.
- Julian V. Roberts: "The Virtual Prision: Community Custody and the Evolution of Imprisonment", Cambridge University Press
2) "The Real Me and my virtual Alter Ego - two distinct characters?"
- based on the movie "eXistenZ"
- students involved: Paul Mayer and Franco Pederiva
Abstract: The goal of our work is two-fold: First, we will show how virtual reality differs from reality and how one might distinguish the real from the artificial world. Furthermore our work will deal with the difference in subjective perception of a single layer from person to person/within a person, possible risk factors to develop psychotic illness due to excessive use of VR systems, as well as beneficial applications of VR in treatment of mental diseases. (Paul) We will also try to find out if the virtual reality is the right place for doing things we can't do in the reality and if this has any consequences to the own personality. Loosing the ability of distinguishing between reality and virtual reality is very dangerous situation and we will also try to find out if someone can get into a kind of slave relationship. (Franco) Literature:
- Max Velmans: "Physical, psychological and virtual realities". 1998, Book Chapter (link)
- Peter Droege: "Intelligent Environments: Spatial Aspects of the Information Revolution", Elsevier Science Ltd, 1997, p. 421ff.
- D. Freeman: "Studying and treating schizophrenia using virtual reality: a new paradigm". Schizophr Bull. 2008 Jul;34(4):605-10. Epub 2008 Mar 28. (link)
- Tammy Knipp: "Merging Realities: Psychosocial Happenings--A World on Stage," Information Visualisation, International Conference on, p. 413, Third International Conference on Information Visualisation (IV'99), 1999 (link)
3) "When does a simulation become a (virtual) reality?"
- based on the movie "Welt am Draht"
- students involved: Andreas Nagiller and Mathias Breuß
Abstract: We try to clarify the definition of the commonly used term "virtual reality" and point out some implications of its usage in technology. Furthermore, we want to show how this definition and things described with it change over time. We do this by pointing out the usage of term "virtual reality" in marketing and science. This way we finally get an impression of how it evolved over time. From that we will try to guess how it might evolve in the future. Literature:
- Gary Bente: "Virtuelle Realitäten", ISBN 3-8017-1465-9 (link)
- David Gelernter: "Mirror worlds or the day software puts the universe in a shoebox", ISBN 3-446-17507-5
- Andreas Lober: "Second Life, World of Warcraft & Co: Faszination, Gefahren, Business": ISBN 978-3-936931-47-1 (link)
4) "Virtual Reality: potential to cause addictive behavior"
- based on the movie "Strange Days" (1995)
- students involved: Fabian Moser
Abstract: As the use of computers and Internet became an aspect of everday life, the potential for overuse is introduced, which could lead to addiction. This paper highlights especially the addictive potential of the online 3D virtual world "Second Life" as the status quo virtual reality in our days and similar games. Literature:
- Mohamed K. Khan: "Report of the Council on Science and Public Health - Emotional and Behavioral Effects, Including Addictive Potential, of Video Games" (link)
- Rob Cottingham and Catherine Winters: "Second Life: What it is, and why it matters" (link)
- Tracey McNerney: "Video Game Addiction: Is it Real?" (link)
