Newsgroups: comp.society.futures Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!batcomputer!cornell!rochester!kodak!doering From: doering@kodak.com (Paul F. Doering) Subject: Virtual manipulation Message-ID: <1991May13.174958.10492@kodak.kodak.com> Sender: doering@kodak.kodak.com (Paul F. Doering) Organization: Kodak Research, Rochester NY Distribution: na Date: Mon, 13 May 91 17:49:58 GMT In and several ancestral messages, bbs@bluemoon.uucp (BBS Login) and others have been discussing human/computer interfaces in which the user would be able to reach a hand into virtual space and manipulate virtual objects. Although the concept seems to have arisen with respect to "physically" managing file folders, etc, it clearly could (would) apply as well to process-control functions: turning a gas valve, lighting a lamp, and other real-world analogs. An objection cited the lack of feedback through the sense of touch and predicted difficulty in mastering the technique relying on sight only, a reply to which dismissed the problem by expressing confidence in the human ability to adapt. (I hope I've been faithful to the correspondents in this summary.) We don't do awfully well in compartmentalizing our learning. In jest, someone warned during the 3-D movie craze of the fifties that we'd all get so used to not having to dodge illusory objects hurled into the audience from the screen that someday someone would get conked by a real bottle falling from a real medicine cabinet. Raise the ante in the current debate: what will be the real-world consequences of training a user that a hand is a suitable agent for "picking up" a hot ingot? My point is that in designing an interface we must be as concerned with habits carried away from it as we are about intuition brought into it. (Insert here the standard boilerplate about responsibilty in programming.) So the question: can anyone refer us to a study (not a hypothesis) in which an investigator quantified the extent to which remote control or remote sensing has been unwittingly transplated as behavior back into the real world? -- ========================= ====================================== Paul Doering (for self) Man will never arrive, doering@kodak.com man will be always on the way. ========================= =============== -Carl Sandburg =======