Realistic Virtual Reality and Perception

John Dilworth [Philosophical Psychology 23(2010), pp. 23-42] Realistic uses of Virtual Reality (VR) technology closely integrate user training on virtual objects with VR-assisted user interactions with real objects. This paper shows how the Interactive Theory of Perception (ITP) may be extended to cover such cases. Virtual objects are explained as concrete models (CMs) that have an inner generation mechanism, and the ITP is used to explain how VR users can both perceive such local CMs, and perceptually represent remote real objects. Also, concepts of modeling and representation are distinguished. The paper concludes with suggestions as to how the ITP methodology developed here could be extended to iconic external representations and models generally.