Welcome back to Reading the Research, where I trawl the Internet to find noteworthy research on autism and related subjects, then discuss it in brief with bits from my own life, research, and observations.
Today's article gives us a glimpse into the future. There are a lot of potential uses for virtual reality. These researchers have landed on the idea of making sexism a more real problem to people via putting them into a woman's body and having them experience typical sexist verbal abuse. Because virtual reality reads as real to people, they experience the events more personally and powerfully. The researchers think this would make a good rehabilitation tool for prisoners.
While that's probably true, and a noble cause, why stop there? Why not use it to teach people in the first place?
There have been some attempts, via Google Glass, to teach autistic people parts of "the hidden curriculum." Things like reading emotions and body language, what things to say in a conversation, and when to say them. But Google Glass never got very far, and the cost of the technology was too high for all but the richest of parents. Most autistic people don't have access to those resources.
If, as I suspect, virtual reality becomes more popular and accessible, it may eventually become possible for programs like this to teach all kinds of things. The Stanford programs could be only the beginning. You could gameify having a back-and-forth conversation, giving extra points for remembering relevant parts of a person's life so your questions and responses are more intelligent. As face-reading technology improves, a wider database of facial expressions could be developed so autistic people could have enough information to recognize emotions easily, even when the person is a stranger.
You could even use virtual reality to teach life skills in a safe environment, or even remotely. One of the barriers for autistic people in learning these skills is not having any familiarity with the skill, and being afraid to fail. You could walk through the process of cooking a basic meal, doing the laundry, or feeding the cat, without there being a mess afterwards if something spills.
There are a lot of possibilities. In this time of quarantine, when we don't know how long this will last, when a coronavirus vaccine will be available, and what life will be like afterwards... it gives me hope to know that this technology is on the horizon.
(Pst! If you like seeing the latest autism-relevant research, visit my Twitter, which has links and brief comments on studies that were interesting, but didn't get a whole Reading the Research article about them.)
Today's article gives us a glimpse into the future. There are a lot of potential uses for virtual reality. These researchers have landed on the idea of making sexism a more real problem to people via putting them into a woman's body and having them experience typical sexist verbal abuse. Because virtual reality reads as real to people, they experience the events more personally and powerfully. The researchers think this would make a good rehabilitation tool for prisoners.
While that's probably true, and a noble cause, why stop there? Why not use it to teach people in the first place?
There have been some attempts, via Google Glass, to teach autistic people parts of "the hidden curriculum." Things like reading emotions and body language, what things to say in a conversation, and when to say them. But Google Glass never got very far, and the cost of the technology was too high for all but the richest of parents. Most autistic people don't have access to those resources.
If, as I suspect, virtual reality becomes more popular and accessible, it may eventually become possible for programs like this to teach all kinds of things. The Stanford programs could be only the beginning. You could gameify having a back-and-forth conversation, giving extra points for remembering relevant parts of a person's life so your questions and responses are more intelligent. As face-reading technology improves, a wider database of facial expressions could be developed so autistic people could have enough information to recognize emotions easily, even when the person is a stranger.
You could even use virtual reality to teach life skills in a safe environment, or even remotely. One of the barriers for autistic people in learning these skills is not having any familiarity with the skill, and being afraid to fail. You could walk through the process of cooking a basic meal, doing the laundry, or feeding the cat, without there being a mess afterwards if something spills.
There are a lot of possibilities. In this time of quarantine, when we don't know how long this will last, when a coronavirus vaccine will be available, and what life will be like afterwards... it gives me hope to know that this technology is on the horizon.
(Pst! If you like seeing the latest autism-relevant research, visit my Twitter, which has links and brief comments on studies that were interesting, but didn't get a whole Reading the Research article about them.)
No comments:
Post a Comment