At the Virtual Human Interaction Lab, Jeremy Bailenson, the Thomas More Storke Professor of Communication, explained his research to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler by showing how virtual experiences can be so immersive that, if carefully guided, users can come out from under the headset and have a more empathetic view of the world.

Through building diverse virtual environments that create strong mental connections with users, Bailenson and his research colleagues have gained considerable insight on some virtual reality “best practices” and the technological demands of delivering immersive experiences.

After being fully immersed in VR simulations, Wheeler did raise a concern about building out virtual reality experiences to the masses and whether infrastructure could handle the bandwidth surge. Bailenson addressed this issues by suggesting that users download 3-D content of an environment to a local computer, and the only data sent over the internet is the tracking information of the user’s body actions – where you look, what your hands touch, where your feet walk.

“Virtual reality technology is becoming incredibly immersive, to the point where we’ve shown that your brain processes it in much the same way it does real-life experiences,” Bailenson said. “We absolutely need to consider how this medium will affect people.”

Read then entire Stanford News Story by By Bjorn Carey HERE.