People know that once addicted to video games, time flies. A new study found that people wearing electronic devices into the world of virtual reality (VR), unknowingly time passes even faster. Researchers have not been able to explain the cause of this phenomenon.
A research group at the University of California, Santa Cruz (University of California, Santa Cruz) conducted an experiment in which participants put on VR glasses and entered a virtual world to play games. They stopped when they felt like it for five minutes.
The researchers then had the same participants play the same game again, with the exact same scenario and setup as the VR game was designed for, the only difference being that it was a two-dimensional version, which is what people commonly play on a computer screen. Again, they were allowed to stop at what felt like five minutes.
The results showed that participants played the VR game for an average of 72.6 seconds longer than they would have played a regular computer game. In other words, the five minutes that people subjectively felt passed while playing VR games were on average 72.6 seconds longer than playing computer games.
One of the researchers, Mullen (Grayson Mullen), said, “This is the first time we’ve really taken apart the factor of whether it’s because we’re playing a video game or because of the content inside and found that it’s in fact the difference between virtual reality and traditional two-dimensional games that causes the difference in people’s subjective perception of time.”
The researchers called this bias in time perception “time compression” (time compression), meaning that actual time passes faster than people subjectively perceive.
The researchers speculate that this may be due to the fact that people in the virtual world do not feel the physical body. “Inside virtual reality, when you look down, either you don’t have a body, or it’s a virtual schematic structure, in short, you don’t feel your body.” says co-researcher Nicolas Davidenko, a professor of psychology.
“There are theories that we rely on our own heartbeat, or other rhythms in our bodies, to help the brain determine the time experienced. Inside virtual reality, when you have less perception of your body, you lose some of the auxiliary mechanisms that you would otherwise rely on for judging time.”
This conclusion sounds intriguing, but the researchers admit that there are loopholes in such an experiment and that the conclusion is questionable.
For example, the decision to play the virtual reality version of the game or the flat version first was random. However, the phenomenon of “time compression” only occurred in participants who played the virtual reality version of the game first.
The researchers wrote in their paper that this could be the result of participants judging time more accurately in the second round of the game after the first round.
However, if the phenomenon observed in this study is of general significance, it means that people will be more likely to become addicted to the virtual reality world, which will have some negative effects.
“As virtual reality devices are designed to be more comfortable and suitable for long periods of time, plus virtual reality games are becoming more immersive, I think people have to be careful not to let virtual reality products become virtual casinos, and not to let more and more people become addicted to them without knowing how much time has been spent.” Maren said.
The study was published May 3 in the time psychology journal “Timing & Time Perception” (Timing & Time Perception).
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