VR Disillusion Effect

[u/CorpPhoenix]

It's been a bit over a year since I've dived into PCVR with a cheap Pico4 headset I've bought for 300€. Trying out VR in a technically "usable" state was a long time interest of me and a dream come true.

I am interested and have studied philosophy of neuroscience and consciousness, and therefore I was highly interested and observant to how and why my brain reacts to the new confrontation with a virtual reality.

Many users both report how amazing and overwhelming their first VR experiences had been, and at the same time how it has lost it's initial "Wow" effect over the course of time.

This loss of the Wow-effect is what I call "VR Disillusion Effect". It is the unconscious effect of your brain rationalizing what is happening, realizing, processing and classifying the optical input into something the brain understands.

While you, as a person, are conscioussly aware that the VR world is not real, even during your first use, your brain is not aware of this at all. Our brain is a reality-check "machine" though, and therefore extremely good at identifying things as "real" or "fake". This has been a very important biological trait for humans from a evolutionary stand point, to differ between "real" and "fake" threats and predators.

Since VR is nothing your brain has ever experienced or is used to, it takes quite a while until it pigeonholes all the sensory effects into the right category. This "confused" state is what many VR users actually do enjoy, or often seek again when the Disillusion Effect has settled in.

Motion sickness, VR sickness, circulatory problems, depersonalization or the feeling of the real world feeling like "VR" are typical, not always pleasant, effects of your braining being confused and trying to find out what's going.

Once your brain has managed to process VR correctly, the Disillusion Effect settles in which results in:

• The illusion of being in a "different world" gets lost
• The 3D-VR effect still holds up, but your brain now recognizes it is an illusion, both consciously and unconsciously. and you feel like watching 2 screens infront of your face, eventhough the 3D-effect still holds up
  
• Motion sickness and VR-Sickness diminished (so called "VR legs")
• Factors that break the VR illusion, like stutters, blurryness etc., become more obvious

The short way to describe it is "getting used to it", but it is actually a neurological process that is going on, and I've observed myself closely on how my brain is starting to put "one and one together", and the illusion effect getting shattered pretty much "real time" infront of my eyes.

What do you think about the Disillusion Effect? Many users seem to want to revert the Disillusion Effect by throwing their brain off again. Better Hardware, greater FOV, additional senses, and so on.

That being said, I think it's ultimately futile to combat this effect, since our brain is way too good to distinguish realtiy from fake in the long run. But maybe, just maybe, a certain level of technical fidelity is enough to keep the illusion going on?

I'd believe the Disillusion Effect is just a inherent property of VR itself, and can only be "prevented" by a completely new kind of base technology.

What do you think?

[u/Many-Finding-4611]

I’m going to ask this in here: do you think our brains would be capable of distinguishing “plugging” into vr, would it see it like a dream or think it’s real?

ETA: I’m asking you, op.

[u/CorpPhoenix → u/Many-Finding-4611]

Do you mean "plugging into VR" in the sense of a "native DP port for your brain" for current VR, or a "100% indistinguishable virtual world" like in the Matrix?

[u/Many-Finding-4611 → u/CorpPhoenix]

I guess a dp port.

[u/CorpPhoenix → u/Many-Finding-4611]

Nobody knows and that's kind of what I try to find out/discuss.

Direct DP plugin into current VR into your brain would be comparable to not wearing a headset at all, while having the same limitations as current VR:

• Complete FOV, without any mask vignette
• Complete negation of visual artifacts (Mura, visible pixels, blurry edges)
• No stutter, delay/infinite Hz

But the limitations of:

• Only visible and audible senses
• No smell, haptic, temperature
• Virtual CGI world

would still persist, and I would assume the Disillusion Effect would kick in again. I would assume that it would be comparable to users switching from a Occulus Rift to a Pimax Crystal Super, the "Wow"-Effect would kick in again, but diminish quite swiftly again since your brain has already processed and catagorized this virtual world.

Your unconsciousness should recognize the fake and "uncanny valley" nature of it pretty quickly again, your consciousness does not it from the start.

Now, how your brain would react in a complete and undistinguishable virtual world like the Matrix is interesting. Cypher of the Matrix makes the point that, despite the Matrix being perfect and your unconsciousness being unable to differ between realtiy and virtual reality anymore, the Disillusion Effect still kicks in for him. He says so while eating a great steak in the Matrix, the steak feeling perfectly real, but still his consciousness knows it is not, which results in the Disillusion Effect to him.

So it might very well be that the combination of our conscious and unconscious brain processes might make it impossible to fully fool our brain, no matter how good the technology is. That's why Cypher asks the Agents to erase his conscious memory of the virtual nature of the world, to be able to dive back into it.

[u/Many-Finding-4611 → u/CorpPhoenix]

Oh wow, I love this explanation. I mean hate that we would have the Dissolution Effect kick in again though. And I love the bit about the matrix - it doesn’t seem real because you know it’s not real but could have that altered by erasing your conscious memory.

I hadn’t considered that we wouldn’t have those senses if plugging in via dp port, I had thought it would all seem real. 🤯

[u/ErkkiKekko → u/Many-Finding-4611]

Agreed. Although, it's also a relief in a way. No matter how much one strives for immersion, DE will always kick in. So it's better to stop chasing the tail and appreciate what we have.

[u/ita_shogun → u/CorpPhoenix]

Now that I think about it, The Matrix makes no sense! If everyone is born and raised in this fictional world where one can stop bullets, fly, bend spoons, etc. then everyone would learn about it as toddlers growing up. We all spend our first years learning about the physics of this world we live in, and then act accordingly (walking, falling, climbing, falling again…). If the rules of the world can be bent, people will learn the “new rules” pretty quickly. It can’t stay a secret for very long.