VOA标准英语2014--Army Aims to Alter Perception by Fooling Senses

 

Army Aims to Alter Perception by Fooling Senses

LOS ANGELES —

The military uses virtual reality to enhance its training.  But there is one hurdle¹ to overcome before the experience can be truly immersive: how to fool the senses in a virtual world. The Mixed Reality Lab - a part of the University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies - is exploring this problem for the Army in a project called “Redirected Walking.”   

Virtual reality is no longer science fiction, but a real tool for the military.  

“Virtual reality is very commonly used for training soldiers and giving them the level of knowledge and preparedness that they need before they are deployed," said Evan Suma.

Evan Suma at the University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies says there is one fundamental limitation to this technology.

“How do we walk around if we are standing² in a room that is limited," he asked.

Suma says current virtual reality experiences limit the movements of the user.  He is working on a project called “Redirected Walking” to change that.  The aim is to trick the users' senses into thinking that they are walking in an infinite virtual world, when in reality they are just walking within a limited space.

Suma says developing this software means replicating³ experiments done in the field of psychology⁴.  One of those is how a person’s sense of vision dominates over many other senses.

“If I rotate the world slowly around your head while you are in virtual reality, as long as it’s small enough, you will actually believe what you are seeing more than what you are feeling, and I can use that to actually get you to curve and walk in a circle while perceiving that you are walking straight.  So that is something that came straight out of psychology," he said.

In addition to training soldiers for combat, virtual reality with a redirected walking component⁵ can also help those in the military who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder⁶.

“When you can move around and really walk around a virtual environment, your sense of presence - that is your feeling of being a part of the virtual world - the power of the experience is greater," said Suma.

This experience can also be translated to consumers and be applied⁷ to different types of video games says Vlad Bahur.

“Something like this would be amazing," said Bahur.

Wearing a head-mounted display that allows him to see and explore a virtual world of doors and rooms and hallways, Bahur experienced redirected walking during a Mixed Reality Lab open house.  He says this can bring gaming to a new level.

“All kinds of games - exploration games, first person games, action games, even sport games," he said.

Companies and universities are working on technology in which mobile devices, such as smartphones, can eventually track a person’s movements to replace a complicated motion-capture system of mounted cameras currently used to make redirected walking work.

Evan Suma says once advanced hardware becomes available, redirected walking software can be integrated for a more realistic, portable and inexpensive experience for both the consumer and those who are training for combat.

1 hurdle   

n.跳栏，栏架；障碍，困难；vi.进行跨栏赛

参考例句：

• The weather will be the biggest hurdle so I have to be ready.天气将会是最大的障碍，所以我必须要作好准备。
• She clocked 11.6 seconds for the 80 metre hurdle.八十米跳栏赛跑她跑了十一秒六。

2 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

3 replicating   

复制( replicate的现在分词 )； 重复； 再造； 再生

参考例句：

• Applications create these partitions for storing and replicating data. 应用程序创建这些分区用来储存和复制数据。
• The closest real things to these creatures were bits of self-replicating RNA. 最贴近这些造物的实物是能做一点微不足道的自复制的核糖核酸。

4 psychology   

n.心理，心理学，心理状态

参考例句：

• She has a background in child psychology.她受过儿童心理学的教育。
• He studied philosophy and psychology at Cambridge.他在剑桥大学学习哲学和心理学。

5 component   

n.组成部分，成分，元件；adj.组成的，合成的

参考例句：

• Each component is carefully checked before assembly.每个零件在装配前都经过仔细检查。
• Blade and handle are the component parts of a knife.刀身和刀柄是一把刀的组成部分。

6 disorder   

n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调

参考例句：

• When returning back,he discovered the room to be in disorder.回家后，他发现屋子里乱七八糟。
• It contained a vast number of letters in great disorder.里面七零八落地装着许多信件。

7 applied   

adj.应用的；v.应用，适用

参考例句：

• She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
• This cream is best applied to the face at night.这种乳霜最好晚上擦脸用。