The Design and Implementation of the Telepathic Immersive Virtual Reality System

This paper describes a project which has a focus on immersive virtual reality (IVR) as an experimental environment and medium for telepathy. IVR denotes the use of three-dimensional computer graphics technology to generate artificial environments that afford real-time interaction and exploration. These are intended to give the user an impression of being present (‘telepresence’) or immersed in a computer-generated world. A sense of immersion is promoted through the use of head mounted displays (HMDs). These present stereo images and sound to create a perceptually encompassing computer environment. An instrumented data glove allows participants to interact with virtual objects. We argue that IVR has a number of features which make it well suited for the study of telepathy, including a higher degree of experimental control, the co-location of senders and receivers, and the opportunity for more ‘natural’ and meaningful (to participants) experimental trials. In the early stages of the project we have focussed on developing an immersive virtual environment (the Telepathic Immersive Virtual Environment, or TIVE) which acts as the experimental environment for both ‘Sender’ and ‘Receiver’ in the later telepathy trials. This environment looks like a room: for example, it has a door, a window, a chair, a bookshelf and a potted plant. During the experimental trials the bookshelf is filled with four objects. These objects are interactive; that is, both Sender and Receiver are able to pick up and manipulate the target object. In addition the Receiver can also handle three other objects which form part of the target set (the Sender does not see these additional objects). As the Sender and Receiver handle an object in the TIVE they hear a sound evocative of that object. Having constructed the TIVE our work now focuses on two telepathy studies. In these studies the Sender tries to communicate to the Receiver by telepathic means the identity of an object randomly chosen from a set of four (the set is in turn randomly chosen from a group of four sets). Within this paper we describe the general procedure for our telepathy studies using the TIVE. This includes the computerised random process of target set selection (and of selecting which object in the set acts as the target), and the use of gesture recognition for object selection and de-selection. We conclude the paper with some indication of our future plans for the TIVE.