cyberoid@milton.u.washington.edu (Robert Jacobson) (12/08/90)
Last night I had the opportunity to hear Dr. Roger Ulrich, associate dean of research at Texas A&M and a social psychologist, discuss the meaning of the visual environment for health. He and his colleagues use various empirical measurements (like blood pressure, recovery from surgery, hospital visits, etc.) to understand how the visual environment affects the physiology and, by implication, the psychology of human beings. Ulrich states that the research is almost incontrovertible that exposure to "nature," even in a representational form (as on a poster), is absolutely essential to human health. People don't get sick as often, and get well quicker (even from such traumatic procedures as major heart surgery), if they can visually experience natural scenes. In Sweden, where much of Ulrich's work is done and where his primary collaborators are located, this research is resulting in the redesign of hospitals and other health institutions, as well as larger habitats, to incorporate more natural scenes. (Such has always been an intuitive part of Scandinavian landscape design.) Two very interesting anecdotes: First, abstract art in hospitals is often physically attacked by mental health patients and, if placed in proximity to other patients, may retard recovery; art depicting nature is never attacked and seems to improve recovery. Second, at Stanford Medical Center, where an architect somehow failed to include windows in the Intensive Care Unit (which are required by building codes), the management tried to slip by with an "artificial window." This artificial window is a computer-generated image of a natural scene, with even the sun's procession across the sky simulated by a chip. The manufacturers of this window (no doubt some whizzes at Stanford), which retails for $20,000, tried to get Ulrich to validate the usefulness of the artificial window as a substitute for the real thing. "They had dollar signs in their eyes," said Ulrich, "but all that would have meant would be more buildings built without windows." In designing virtual worlds, once they're not just for our own enjoyment, we may need to be more careful to consider their effects on other people. I know that Virtual Seattle was well received, perhaps more so than other virtual worlds that have been created (like all the very playful, but very abstract worlds created by VPL), because it offered people an ordered alternative to reality. All the creative fervor engendered by virtual technology may be fine for expressive art -- just as Picasso and Mondrian created great art for the general population -- but the consequences of abstract virtual worlds, like abstract art, for vulnerable populations should be kept in mind. Bob Jacobson Human Interface Technology Lab Moderator, sci.virtual-worlds