Investigation and Analysis of a Reported Incident Resulting in an Actual Airline Hijacking due to a Fanatical and Engrossed VR State

We define Chronic Alternate-World Disorder ( CAWD ) as “ A state in which a person is no longer able to distinguish the real world from virtual space, due to his or her isolation in virtual space for an extended period of time with no contact with the actual world. ” The case report is about a patient who hijacked a jumbo jetliner in order to fly the airplane on his own, after developing CAWD from the use of flight-simulator virtual reality system. We believe symptomatic cases of CAWD will increase as virtual-reality (VR) spread throughout our society. In view of this, our objective is to propose precautionary and preventive measures for providers of VR system for patients with schizophrenia or personality disorders, from psychiatric and sociological perspective

Multimodality in VR: A survey

Virtual reality (VR) is rapidly growing, with the potential to change the way we create and consume content. In VR, users integrate multimodal sensory information they receive, to create a unified perception of the virtual world. In this survey, we review the body of work addressing multimodality in VR, and its role and benefits in user experience, together with different applications that leverage multimodality in many disciplines. These works thus encompass several fields of research, and demonstrate that multimodality plays a fundamental role in VR; enhancing the experience, improving overall performance, and yielding unprecedented abilities in skill and knowledge transfer

Exploring Game Transfer Phenomena: a multimodal research approach for investigating video games' effects

Video games are evolving and are becoming ever more immersive. Consequently, it is necessary to understand their effects on gamers’ psychological wellbeing. The impact on cognition, affect and behaviour has mostly been investigated separately and sometimes from narrow approaches that limit the understanding of the video games’ effects. This thesis investigates the effects of playing video games from a novel, multimodal and broad research approach that is termed "Game Transfer Phenomena" (GTP). The Game Transfer Phenomena framework examines the influence of video games on gamers’ sensorial perception, cognitions, and behaviours directly related to video games’ structural characteristic, game content and, in-game activities. A theoretically eclectic approach is taken to explain the interplay of physiological, perceptual, and cognitive mechanisms involved in GTP, mainly informed by socio-cognitive and behavioural theories. Mixed-methods were used in the empirical research. The three qualitative studies presented here were analysed by content and thematic analysis methodologies (n=1,244), and the quantitative online survey using appropriate statistical testing (n=2,362). The specific aims of the thesis were: (i) identify, classify and explain GTP experiences collected in online video game forums divided in three empirical studies, and (ii) investigate the characteristics of GTP, and factors associated with GTP in a cross-cultural online survey with a total sample of English and Spanish Speaking gamers. The results suggest that gamers experience a variety of non-volitional phenomena when not playing. (i) Experiencing thoughts, urges, images, sounds, tactile and kinaesthetic perceptions and sensations associated with the game, (ii) perceiving distorted physical stimuli due to the video game features, (iii) confusing physical stimuli with video game elements, (iv) responding to certain physical stimuli as in the game, and (v) experiencing involuntary body movements and behaviours directly related with the video game. In summary: (i) different gamers reported similar GTP in the same video games, (ii) GTP are in the continuum between normal and pathological phenomena, and appear to reflect failures in cognitive and control inhibition, and neural adaptations, (iii) age and occupation, having a medical condition, gamer type, session length, playing for escape, immersion, exploring, customization and rules and mechanics were significantly associated with GTP, and (iv) the appraisal of GTP were either positive or negative (with one in five players experiencing distress or dysfunction due to their GTP experiences). Findings suggest that resemblances between virtual and physical objects facilitate GTP and these may be strengthened with more advanced technologies. Knowing about particular video game features and their effect on gamers may contribute to taking more informed decisions regarding the psychological, cognitive, physiological and social effects of video games and the technologies that are still to come

Bowdoin Orient v.132, no.1-24 (2002-2003)

https://digitalcommons.bowdoin.edu/bowdoinorient-2000s/1003/thumbnail.jp

Maritime expressions:a corpus based exploration of maritime metaphors

This study uses a purpose-built corpus to explore the linguistic legacy of Britain’s maritime history found in the form of hundreds of specialised ‘Maritime Expressions’ (MEs), such as TAKEN ABACK, ANCHOR and ALOOF, that permeate modern English. Selecting just those expressions commencing with ’A’, it analyses 61 MEs in detail and describes the processes by which these technical expressions, from a highly specialised occupational discourse community, have made their way into modern English. The Maritime Text Corpus (MTC) comprises 8.8 million words, encompassing a range of text types and registers, selected to provide a cross-section of ‘maritime’ writing. It is analysed using WordSmith analytical software (Scott, 2010), with the 100 million-word British National Corpus (BNC) as a reference corpus. Using the MTC, a list of keywords of specific salience within the maritime discourse has been compiled and, using frequency data, concordances and collocations, these MEs are described in detail and their use and form in the MTC and the BNC is compared. The study examines the transformation from ME to figurative use in the general discourse, in terms of form and metaphoricity. MEs are classified according to their metaphorical strength and their transference from maritime usage into new registers and domains such as those of business, politics, sports and reportage etc. A revised model of metaphoricity is developed and a new category of figurative expression, the ‘resonator’, is proposed. Additionally, developing the work of Lakov and Johnson, Kovesces and others on Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT), a number of Maritime Conceptual Metaphors are identified and their cultural significance is discussed