Category: final

The leading cause of death in the United States for people aged 15-24, our age group, is car accidents. What is the second? Suicide. Among all age groups, another life is lost every 13.7 minutes to suicide. That’s 105.8 people a day, 38,364 per year. For every 100-200 attempts in youths, there is 1 completed act. This is a huge problem in the United States.

Suicide is 100% preventable, if the signs are noticed and action is taken. In 80% of suicides someone didn’t say something when they saw warning signs. This program will assist in making high school through college students aware of the signs of suicide and how to take action to prevent it.

Warning signs include acquiring a gun or stockpiling pills, talking about wanting to die or kill oneself, impulsivity or increased risk taking, giving away prized possessions, self-destructive acts (self-mutilation), increased drug or alcohol abuse, talking about having no reason to live, mood changes, ideation, and social isolation/withdrawal.  Problems that increase suicide risk include prior attempts, mental health disorders, history of trauma or abuse, family history of suicide, and *lack of social support*.

Some things you can do to help prevent suicide includes asking them directly, listen to them, show you care, contact their parent or a counselor, and whatever you do, do not leave them alone. It is better to have them be mad at you for a couple weeks than be gone forever.

This application involves a series of videos with the user making a choice at the end of each video. The choices made influences the overall outcome of the video. The user starts out having a conversation with their “friend” who is suicidal. Over the course of the video, warning signs are revealed. The user gets to choose what they do when each opportunity is presented. After the last decision, the suicidal person either thanks the user for doing something when they saw the warning signs or the user is at the suicidal person’s funeral.

The difference between this application and others is the character in the application that is suicidal is like your friend and the user’s choices influence the outcome. The goal is to invoke empathy and splagna within the user, as well as educate people about the warning signs of suicide and how to intervene. Know the signs, save a life.

Sources

Lesser, Loryn. “Adolescent Suicide: Prevalence; Circumstance; and Conditions of Recognition”. November 2017. PowerPoint Presentation.

One of the oldest pastimes and arts to enable survival throughout history is hunting. In modern times however, it is not necessarily a key to survival, but is still done by millions in the US alone.  One of the prerequisites one must have prior to becoming a hunter is he or she must pass a hunter’s safety course.  This course consists of sitting in a class and merely listening to an instructor preach the “do’s and don’ts” of hunting.  As someone who has been through the class, I can testify that most f the information is forgotten after the conclusion of those three, six hour classes.

So, recently I have been thinking, “How can we make a hunter’s safety course better and help prospective hunters make sure they know what must be done to actually ethically hunt?”   The answer is exposure, and because actual, physical exposure is dangerous and illegal, Virtual Reality can give the prospective hunter the exposure they need.

After searching the web far and wide, it was clear that a V.R. hunter’s safety course is not available n the market. The closest device that tries to emulate what a hunter must do in the woods is a gaming console with a screen; that’s not exactly superb immersion.  I propose an application that puts the hunter in the shoes of a hunter.  From choosing which tool and ammunition, to sitting in a stand or blind, to have to field dress the animal, this application will give the prospective hunter the full immersive effect.

Not only will this application give the hunter the knowledge of what it takes to be a hunter, but also allows him or her to empathize with the animals he or she is hunting.  Empathy with animals is a concept brushed upon in the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?,by Philip K. Dick.  Before someone should be able to kill an animal, they must first become familiar with its environment, familiar with its lifestyle, and knowledgeable about its habits.  Through V.R. technology, it is possible to create safer, more ethical, and smarter hunters.

English 281 elevator pitch (1)

“Reliving History” is an interactive experience where users are immersed in a simulation of history.​ Users will see actors reenacting historical events or a hypothetical historical events. Users will be able to experience this in the first person point of view.​ Users will have the ability to answer questions asked by actors by selecting responses with haptic controls.

The goal of “Reliving History” is to get users engaged in historical events and connect with past, or even present, groups of people they would otherwise not understand. ​ It is intended to improve user’s knowledge of historical events by immersing them directly into the historical scene. It promotes empathy in users because they are able to experience how people lived and were treated.​ Users will evaluate what they’ve learned by taking a short quiz before they exit that reviews the scenario they’ve been through.

The HTC Live VR headset will allow users to experience firsthand what it was like to live in a certain time period as a certain demographic, social caste or role. ​It will totally immerse users into the scene. They will be able to hear the voices of the actors in the scene, see a full 360 degrees around them, walk in a confined space, and even select and touch objects with haptic controls.

“Reliving History” targets museums as the consumers (the ones who would actually purchase the product) and museum goers as a secondary audience because they would be the ones experiencing it. ​ We could possibly first release a demo set containing short clips of a few historical events and continue by releasing new time periods, roles, and demographics.

Only VR tech that already exists would be used (HTC Live).​ We would work with museum’s budget so they can get exactly what they want.​ They could possibly have the new VR technology be part of a grand opening and charge an entry fee for opening night and have people try the technology. More people may come to the museum to try it.​ Challenges may arise as this simulation cannot reproduce history perfectly (Allison), but we should only go so far in depth with the simulation as we know we can still be accurate.

Proposal

The idea I have for my proposal is a virtual reality experience that puts users on outdoor adventures with different personalities that will guide them and teach them about the different areas that they are in. Users will be able to choose from an array of videos with unique personalities who will walk through outdoor/terrain areas of the world as if they are with them through the entire journey. Using the GoPro OMNI, these personalities will record themselves walking through nature and other areas of the world. These areas include but are not limited to: nature walks, historical landmark adventures, natural phenomena that happens in many areas of the world, monument sites, and other areas of significance. This app will make a profit primarily on subscriptions, advertisements, and generous donations that will be apparent on the app’s homepage. Users will be able to pay for a premium service that gives them all-access to all of the app’s content.

Target Audience

This app can be used by anyone. However, the main target audience will be children with bed-ridden illnesses and other patients who suffer from similar illnesses. Many of these individuals don’t get to explore the greatness that is nature. Due to their illnesses, many children will never get to know what it’s like to camp, go on nature-walks, and see other landmarks with great significance. These videos will not only be educational but will also help these individuals explore beyond what their bed has to offer.

How it will teach empathy?

These videos are meant to give users the deep understanding of how important our Earth is to human survival. The main goal of these videos is to shine lights on natural phenomena that take place around the world. These videos will go into the importance of the area they are covering, and how protecting these environments is not only beneficial for humanity, but for the greater good of our Earth. This app will also promote an agenda to help raise money for cancer patients and other sicknesses that keep children from being children.

According to Google’s #prideforeveryone, it is illegal to be gay in more than 70 countries.  With that being said, a huge topic of debate in today’s society revolves around gay rights. On one side, you have those in favor of gay rights, while the other side believes that it is not right. I’m pretty sure that we all know of or are friends with at least one gay person. I know for a fact that they receive a lot of hate from  many people. Without actually being gay, there is no way of experiencing the feeling they get when someone degrades them.

My VR pitch would deal with the user being placed in a gay rights parade or march. During this parade, the user would be subjected to an opposing side who is there to protest the parade. They will be forced to hear awful things that are said to gay people, in order to really get a feeling of what these individuals have to deal with on a daily basis. Yes there are current VR experiences that allow you to experience the good parts about the parade like unity but they leave out the negative side, such as the harassing protestors. This VR experience would literally put you into a gay individuals shoes in order to really feel the discrimination they go through daily in the fight for gay rights.

Work Cited

“#prideforeveryone | Join the Virtual Pride Parade.” Google. Google, n.d. Web. 13 Nov. 2017.

Virtual Reality Proposal

The simulation I have in mind is that you get to choose a storyline just like the game of Life or Sims. You create the perfect life for yourself where you can choose your career, income, car, and family. The only catch is you can’t choose your race, and it is randomly selected. In the simulation there will be multiple scenarios in which you will go through. For example, you will go through a week of events in your life. Some of these scenarios will be going to work, shopping in a store, eating at a restaurant, interacting with a police officer, etc. In this time of our lives, racial discrimination is still at an all time high even though people believe it is not. This application would be a good way for people to experience what it is like to be in another person’s shoes.

Target Audience

I think the application would be beneficial for early childhood through adulthood. It is best to teach empathy at an early age because this is a critical time for teaching empathy during this stage of development. During early childhood is when children are first introduced to what is mean and nice. The earlier you teach your child what mean behavior is the better. Neglecting this can result in problems with human attachment and emotional development. When you teach children to understand their own feelings and behavior it helps them better understand the feelings of others. Adults may already have some empathy, but they can further develop theirs through this simulation. They may not know some things that they say to others can make them feel a certain way. This can be a learning experience for them as well.

Article Summary

I could not find a Virtual Reality application related to race. However I did do research on how viewing ourselves in other people’s skin would make us more empathetic as humans. I read an article by Harry Farmer and Lara Maister, and they discussed the differences between two forms of self-representation. The first is the ‘bodily’ self, which talks about how other perceive you and how that makes you feel you should behave based on their perceptions. The second is the ‘conceptual’ self, and this talks about your individual belief about yourself.  Farmer and Maister then investigate how both the bodily and conceptual self are related to social cognition and they focused on how self-representations are involved in the processing and creation of prejudice.

How can this teach empathy?

Virtual reality is a new way of learning in ways that you could have never imagined. It is an experience that you may never be able to go through in real life but you can see life through a new set of eyes. We may assume we know someone’s life but in reality we really have no clue of what they may go through. With this series of scenarios we can demonstrate that social attitudes towards various racial groups can lead to a reduction in prejudice towards that group. This concept can be applied to not only race, but religion, sexual orientation, gender, and so forth.

Sources Cited

Farmer, Harry and Lara Maister. “Putting Ourselves in Another’s Skin: Using the Plasticity of Self-Perception to Enhance Empathy and Decrease Prejudice.” Social Justice Research, 31 Oct. 2017. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1007/s11211-017-0294-1.

Animal cruelty is defined as humans inflicting suffering or harm upon animals for purposes other than self-defense or survival (confinement, neglect, physical punishment, and emotional torture).

The Black Jaguar White Tiger Foundation is located in Mexico. It is a foundation that rescues as many animals in need from crucial circumstances such as circuses, breeding facilities; both legal and illegal, and from people that have them as pets. This foundation provides the animals “with a home, food, the necessary medical care available and a life of dignity and Love for the rest of their lives”. With 6.4 million followers on Instagram and 2.9 followers on Facebook, this foundation purpose is “We try to help the millions of people that follow us to fall in Love with our rescues so that as a consequence they learn to fall in Love with their Planet.”

The foundation of the organization is a Mexican born business man who everyone calls “Eddie”

With millions of people being fans of Eddie’s work, my VR would focus on the different stages that they rescue their animals in. First step, being allowed to show people the process in how they rescue their animals, then showing everyone the medical attention that the animals would need in order to survive, and lastly the recovery step.

Animal Rescued:

Lions, Jaguars, Tigers, Leopards, Lynxes, Pumas (Total: Over 295)

Including 60 rescued dogs from the street

Sources

Pitch and Facts:

PTSD has become a growing issue among both active duty military members and veterans. About 11-20 (11-20%) out of 100 veterans who served in Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom are diagnosed with PTSD each year. About 12% out of 100 veterans from the Gulf War are diagnosed with PTSD each year and about 30% out of 100 veterans from the Vietnam War are diagnosed with PTSD. While these might seem like small numbers, these are just the statistics for those that seek help and receive a diagnoses (U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, 2016)

My concept for the VR world would be to place the user in a world that a military spouse or family member would be in. They would be fully immersed in the everyday struggles of trying to take care of/ help someone with PTSD. Personally, I feel as though military personnel are overlooked and seen as people that will get over any emotional/ physical stress; however, the VR world would bring light to them. It would make people realize that being in combat and being exposed to life-threatening situations adds more stress to an already stressful lifestyle. This world would not only allow non-military familes/ spouses to understand the issues of PTSD among military personnel but it would also allow military familes/ spouses to learn ways to help their loved one cope with their PTSD and ways to prevent certain actions from happening (ie. outbursts of anger, which has been proven to impair the cognitive control of behavior) (Novaco, 2012).

My Target Audience:

High School or College Psychology students

Military Spouses and Families

Military Personnel

Sources:

Novaco, Raymond W., et al. “Anger and Postcombat Mental Health: Validation of a Brief Anger Measure with U.S. Soldiers Postdeployed from Iraq and Afghanistan.” Psychological Assessment, vol. 24, no. 3, 01 Sept. 2012, pp. 661-675. EBSCOhost, ezproxy.stevenson.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ991868&site=ehost-live.

“PTSD: National Center for PTSD.” How Common Is PTSD? – PTSD: National Center for PTSD, 5 July 2007, www.ptsd.va.gov/public/ptsd-overview/basics/how-common-is-ptsd.asp.