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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey are you welcome to Stuff to

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Speaker 1: Blow your Mind? My name is Robert Lamb and I'm

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Speaker 1: Joe McCormick. And today we're gonna be touching on a

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Speaker 1: topic related to virtual characters. That's right. This was a

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Speaker 1: topic that was suggested to us by our listener Peter,

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Speaker 1: who is quite involved in virtual reality these days, and

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Speaker 1: he said, hey, you guys should do an episode on

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Speaker 1: the proteus effect. Now, the proteus effect is something that

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Speaker 1: will deal with virtual characters. So we're gonna be touching

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Speaker 1: on video games and virtual environments and stuff like that.

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Speaker 1: But even if you're somebody who has no personal interests

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Speaker 1: in video games or anything like that, I hope you

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Speaker 1: stick around because it's an interesting topic nonetheless, and I

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Speaker 1: think it will ultimately have some relevance to yourself in

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Speaker 1: the society you live in, even if you're not somebody

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Speaker 1: who's ever played games or plans on playing games, because

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Speaker 1: a lot of it does just hinge upon the idea

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Speaker 1: of what happens when we put on this other face,

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Speaker 1: and it could be you can you can take it

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Speaker 1: to the virtual reality extremes to where there is a

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Speaker 1: body that I am occupying and I'm walking around in

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Speaker 1: it within a virtual environment. There's the video game level

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Speaker 1: of a character that I have. I have picked out

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Speaker 1: its face, I have picked out it's it's clothing options,

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Speaker 1: and now I am interacting with a digital world through it.

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Speaker 1: But you can also take it down to the avatar

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Speaker 1: level on various message boards or email threads, etcetera. Yeah, totally. Now,

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Speaker 1: if you're not familiar with how some of these video

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Speaker 1: games work, where you create an avatar for yourself, this

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Speaker 1: this is a thing that happens in a lot of games.

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Speaker 1: There's a character creation process. Not all games. Some games

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Speaker 1: the character I mean some games you don't actually even

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Speaker 1: play as a character. You don't embody a person shaped thing.

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Speaker 1: They're like puzzle games and stuff. But in games where

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Speaker 1: you play as a character of some hype, some of

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Speaker 1: them it's just a fictional, pre established character. But sometimes

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Speaker 1: you get to create that character yourself, right, and there's

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Speaker 1: usually the beginning of the game some type of process

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Speaker 1: you go through to do that, and you get to

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Speaker 1: like pick what they look like, and maybe pick what

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Speaker 1: some of their personality attributes are or what some of

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Speaker 1: their skills are a lot of games have a thing

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Speaker 1: like this. Robert, do you have a favorite favorite character

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Speaker 1: creation Yeah, well, I'd say more the more recent games.

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Speaker 1: I've really enjoyed the like the sky Rim and Fallout

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Speaker 1: character creation suites. I feel like you have a lot

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Speaker 1: of a lot of options there and you can kind

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Speaker 1: of create exactly the character you want. Uh. Thinking back

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Speaker 1: to the older games, I was a big fan of

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Speaker 1: ice wind Dale and ice wind Dale too. I have

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Speaker 1: no idea what that is. These were turn based dungeons

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Speaker 1: and Dragons, uh, role playing games that you would play

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Speaker 1: online like top down View and that they so it

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Speaker 1: was virtual. It was not like a pin and paper,

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Speaker 1: not pin and paper. These were video games. They were

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Speaker 1: the same engine as Balter's Gay and Torment was another

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Speaker 1: one though Torment had pre created characters but was still

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Speaker 1: a fabulous game. But the creation suite, especially on on

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Speaker 1: ice wind Dale too, as I remember, they had some

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Speaker 1: really cool character art you could you could select for

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Speaker 1: the thumbnail. I believe that through some minor tinkering you

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Speaker 1: could bring in outside art to serve as the thumbnail

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Speaker 1: and then you had a fair that these were not

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Speaker 1: the most detailed of characters on the screen, but you

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Speaker 1: had a fair amount of choice and how they were

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Speaker 1: put together as well. Yeah, So one of the things

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Speaker 1: we're going to be exploring today is what are the

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Speaker 1: effects of coming to embody a character in a virtual environment?

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Speaker 1: Does that change the player when you play as a

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Speaker 1: character with certain physical or behavioral attributes? Now, Robert, my

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Speaker 1: the main character creation process in video games I remember

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Speaker 1: from when I was younger is not as interesting as yours.

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Speaker 1: It was the wrestler creation mode in the Nintendo sixty

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Speaker 1: four game WWF war Zone, which I played when I

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Speaker 1: was in like six seventh grade, I think this game, yeah,

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Speaker 1: and so it was this terrible, blocky looking wrestling game,

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Speaker 1: uh that had the WWF wrestlers in it, but you

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Speaker 1: could create a custom wrestler. And so what my friends

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Speaker 1: and I would always do is try to figure out

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Speaker 1: how to create the most ridiculous looking wrestler you possibly

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Speaker 1: could that had like I don't know, like you know,

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Speaker 1: legs that were five times wider than his head and

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Speaker 1: wearing some crazy Easter egg costume. And it was it

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Speaker 1: was mainly for laughs, but we did put a lot

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Speaker 1: of time and energy into it. It was like we

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Speaker 1: had to achieve peak ridiculousness. Well, the ultimate tragedy is

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Speaker 1: that you were just a few years away from w

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Speaker 1: w F WrestleMania two thousand and No Mercy, which were

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Speaker 1: both in sixty four wrestling games built on the the

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Speaker 1: a Ki Virtual Pro Wrestling engine from Japan. I don't

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Speaker 1: know what that is. They were fabulous games, just a

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Speaker 1: fabulous engine for the game. But you know, they these

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Speaker 1: wrestling games have come a long ways. I was never

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Speaker 1: into creating myself in them because it just felt weird

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Speaker 1: to me, but I knew people that would do it,

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Speaker 1: And nowadays you can. You can like bring in scans

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Speaker 1: of your own face or the scans of virtually any

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Speaker 1: existing wrestler or celebrity and create an amazingly life like

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Speaker 1: just an immaculate representation of that individual in these updated

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Speaker 1: wrestling games. So you scan yourself in and you make

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Speaker 1: a virtual copy of yourself and then watch it get

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Speaker 1: beat down by stone Cold exactly. However, Yeah, go through

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Speaker 1: a table or bleed through its face, and it's, uh,

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Speaker 1: the technology is amazing, and yet at the same point,

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Speaker 1: it's it's it's it's even stranger to me to try

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Speaker 1: and imagine myself doing that, like creating a like a

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Speaker 1: muscled avatar of myself that just goes in there and

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Speaker 1: just gets beat to a luddy pulp. Now, on one hand,

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Speaker 1: you could look at that and say, Okay, that's you know,

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Speaker 1: it's just people horsing around having fun play in some games,

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Speaker 1: which is generally true, and if you take that attitude,

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Speaker 1: you're probably not gonna, you know, think that there's anything

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Speaker 1: super meaningful going on here. But on the other hand,

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Speaker 1: it's really worth wondering how doing something like that could

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Speaker 1: affect you and possibly change you. This is not a

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Speaker 1: scenario that we are biologically adapted for in any way.

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Speaker 1: I would say that there's no analogy in nature to

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Speaker 1: creating a virtual environment in which you take on the

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Speaker 1: characteristics of a created character and play within that virtual environment.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I guess you could say that they're like

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Speaker 1: rituals maybe where people sort of embody mythological characters that

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Speaker 1: they play within the rituals, Right, But even then you're

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Speaker 1: still bound to your body when you're doing that enactment. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, the only other example I can think of

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Speaker 1: is just uh, the mental mental time travel, chromasthesia and

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Speaker 1: imagining various scenarios occurring and extrapolating how you might react

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Speaker 1: in those situations. But then you're still pretty much bound

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Speaker 1: to yourself unless there's a particular example from uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: from from from cultural history where someone is embodying in

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Speaker 1: this process, they are embodying the aspect of a god,

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Speaker 1: but I am not aware of it. If there is, well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I would say the imagination that's pretty much the only

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Speaker 1: equivalent space. But the imagination is not physically enacted. When

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Speaker 1: you do virtual environments, you have to physically perform movements

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Speaker 1: within those virtual environments. You have to like, you know,

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Speaker 1: you move a controller or something like that. It's a

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Speaker 1: it's a challenging process that you have to engage with,

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Speaker 1: and that is more continuous than imagination, which tends to

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Speaker 1: kind of come in and out. Right. Yeah, the the

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Speaker 1: just merely imagining something or reading a book is probably

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Speaker 1: not gonna update your body schema, which into the way

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Speaker 1: that you're thinking about your own body. Right, So you

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Speaker 1: have to wonder does the idea of playing as a

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Speaker 1: character different than yourself change yourself? Does going into a

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Speaker 1: virtual environment and embodying some other type of being make

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Speaker 1: you a different kind of being in reality? And that's

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Speaker 1: what we're gonna be looking at today, So let's take

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Speaker 1: a moment to talk about just the name of of

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Speaker 1: the effect here, the Proteus effect. So who was Proteus, Well,

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Speaker 1: it would see he was a character in the matrix,

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Speaker 1: right was he was there? A Proteus matrix. So it's

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Speaker 1: been a while since I've entered the matrix. Uh, well,

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Speaker 1: you know, the funny thing is, it would seem that

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Speaker 1: that fate would have us return once more to the

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Speaker 1: world of undersea gods and humanoids, because because what we

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Speaker 1: have here is Proteus from Greek mythology, the old Man

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Speaker 1: of the Sea, the Old Man of the Sea. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: essentially a primordial sea god. As with all things mythological,

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Speaker 1: Proteus is exact identity, and his role shifts over time.

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Speaker 1: But that's quite fitting for Proteus in a number of ways.

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Speaker 1: In Giants, Monsters and Dragons by Carol Rose, an encyclopedia

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Speaker 1: of fantastic Entities and Creatures that I come back to

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Speaker 1: again and again, she describes him as quote a primordial

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Speaker 1: sea giant and quote a type of gigantic merman and

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Speaker 1: guardian of the sea creatures. And he served Poseidon, the

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Speaker 1: sea god. He boasted the gift of prophecy as well,

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Speaker 1: but you had to catch him to get him to

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Speaker 1: share his prophecies. Wait, how do you catch him? Is

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Speaker 1: that like rod and lure kind of catching Or essentially

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Speaker 1: it's like you gotta chase him down and fight him,

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Speaker 1: wrestle him, overcome him that way. But the problem is

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Speaker 1: that Proteus can change his shape. He can change it

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Speaker 1: into something more monstrous to escape you, uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: swifter to escape do you escape you with etcetera. Uh.

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Speaker 1: The secret, though, ends up being revealed by his daughter Elda,

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Speaker 1: the uh who who lets a few select mortals know

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Speaker 1: that you have to catch him while he's sleeping on

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Speaker 1: the island of Pharaohs. Now. Various other accounts describe him

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Speaker 1: as not only a shape changer, but a being that

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Speaker 1: is just constantly changing shape, as being essentially formless, which

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Speaker 1: is fitting because this is a is a god of

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Speaker 1: the sea. This makes him like the sea itself. He

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Speaker 1: is liquid, He is ever changing, difficult to predict, kind

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Speaker 1: of like those identity masks in a scanner. Darkly. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's sort of like never really taking a solid form,

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Speaker 1: so you can't really identify somebody later. Yeah, or and

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Speaker 1: and would make him difficult to catch as well. And

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Speaker 1: this is where we get the word protean, which means

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Speaker 1: tending or able to change frequently or easily. Uh. Sometimes

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Speaker 1: it's used just to just in the place of versatile.

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Speaker 1: But I think that's sort of usage is kind of

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Speaker 1: an insult to the gods, because you might say that, say,

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Speaker 1: Sammy Hagar is versatile and that he can front a

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Speaker 1: band and run a tequila brand. But I think it's

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Speaker 1: a bit much to say that that Sammy Hagar, it's protean.

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Speaker 1: Though that's impressive. I can do neither of those things. No,

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Speaker 1: I I see what you're saying. Like a protean suggests

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Speaker 1: some more fundamental changes and and commitments to different natures, right,

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Speaker 1: whereas versatile just says that you can, you can multitask,

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Speaker 1: you can do some different stuff. Yeah, protean almost has it.

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Speaker 1: I mean it has a sort of mad or holy

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Speaker 1: vibe to it, right, Like something that is protean is

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Speaker 1: um is difficult for us to master and grasp, And

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Speaker 1: maybe the same is true of Sammy Hagar. I'm not sure.

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Speaker 1: Certainly it's hard to get him to commit to a

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Speaker 1: speed limit. We know that much. Robert where at all

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Speaker 1: the Sammy Hagar come from. I don't know. You just

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Speaker 1: listen to the Classic rock radio the other day and

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Speaker 1: I was just trying to think about who's who is

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Speaker 1: an individual that's considered versatile in their interests, and I

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Speaker 1: Sammy Hagar, Well, I know I have. I initially thought

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Speaker 1: of of Maynard from Tool, but then I thought, well,

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Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe Maynard is protean. I'm not sure

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Speaker 1: he's a he's a he's he's a mysterious dude that's

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Speaker 1: called Sammy Hagar instead. So it's a clear cut you're

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Speaker 1: saying Maynard from Tool he does he does his alternative

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Speaker 1: hard rock thing, and he does his I've got a

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Speaker 1: vineyard I make wine thing yeah and m m a

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Speaker 1: oh yeah he's into fighting. Yeah yeah, he has has

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Speaker 1: multiple dimensions to his character. The idea it all comes

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Speaker 1: back to wrestling in the end. Yeah, maybe not all

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Speaker 1: that protean, but that's certainly versatile. But today we're not

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Speaker 1: talking about Sammy Hagar. We're not talking about Maynard, We're

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Speaker 1: not even really talking about Greek shape shifters. We're talking

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Speaker 1: about the Internet, video games, virtual reality, and the idea

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Speaker 1: that we get to pick and choose our form, and

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Speaker 1: in doing so, maybe we have to choose our identity.

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Speaker 1: All right, well, we will take a quick break. When

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Speaker 1: we come back, we will get into the original research

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Speaker 1: on the proteus effect. Thank alright, we're back, all right now.

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Speaker 1: The short definition of the proteus effect is that it

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Speaker 1: is a name for the way that avatars, meaning virtual

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Speaker 1: characters that we embody. It's a name for the way

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Speaker 1: that avatars change our behavior in a virtual environment. So

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Speaker 1: there was some original research on this subject between the

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Speaker 1: years like two thousand seven and two thousand nine or so.

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Speaker 1: That's when this first came out, and it was associated

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Speaker 1: with the work of a researcher by the name of

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Speaker 1: Nicki Ye and Nikki he was. He was the scientist

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Speaker 1: behind the original proteus effect, and he summarized his original

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Speaker 1: research in an article I read from two thousand and

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Speaker 1: nine where he pointed out some of the main features

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Speaker 1: that they had discovered in their first couple of studies

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Speaker 1: on it. So he points out, to start with, this

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Speaker 1: was sort of like the starting basis of the idea

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Speaker 1: that putting on certain garments, clothing and uniforms has been

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Speaker 1: shown to change people's behavior. For example, there are these

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Speaker 1: experiments that show that when you dress subjects in black uniforms,

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Speaker 1: they behave more aggressively than when you dress them in

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Speaker 1: white uniforms. And experiments like these show that to some extent,

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Speaker 1: our behavior is influenced by visual self perception. We act

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Speaker 1: out the parts people would expect us to act out

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Speaker 1: based on how we look. And I think this is

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Speaker 1: probably the same kind of research that informs, or at

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Speaker 1: least partially informs the old business idea that you should

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Speaker 1: dress for the job you want, not the job you

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Speaker 1: have rights right now, I think the part of that

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Speaker 1: advice is based on the reasoning the dressing that way

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Speaker 1: will influence the people who have the power to hire

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Speaker 1: or promote you. Right that you want to look the part,

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Speaker 1: and so you're trying to influence others. But there's another

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Speaker 1: side of that that dressing for the job you want

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Speaker 1: is also an influence on the self. It can also

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Speaker 1: be a beneficial alteration of self perception. If you dress

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Speaker 1: like someone with a certain job, you'll probably find yourself

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Speaker 1: behaving and performing more like someone who belongs in that job.

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Speaker 1: You put the costume on, and the costume helps you

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Speaker 1: get into character. But what this research shows with the

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Speaker 1: way in clothes cognition changes us is that the costume

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Speaker 1: tends to get you into character, whether you mean to

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Speaker 1: get into character or not. Now we've touched on in

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Speaker 1: clothes cognition on the show in the past, cognitive psychologist

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Speaker 1: Joe Adam and Adam Galinsky from Northwestern University coined the term.

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Speaker 1: One of the most famous examples is the use of,

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Speaker 1: say a lab coat. What happens when you wear a

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Speaker 1: lab coat and maybe carry a clipboard around. Well, they

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Speaker 1: found that the effect would work. You would feel like

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Speaker 1: smarter or more, you know, in control of your doctor's

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Speaker 1: status here, But only if you wore the coat and

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Speaker 1: we're aware of the symbolic meaning. So you actually you

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Speaker 1: have to know what it's about, what it represents, and

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Speaker 1: you actually have to essentially make it a part of

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Speaker 1: your body by covering yourself in it. Yeah, I would

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Speaker 1: say that essentially the way this works is that you're

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Speaker 1: performing according to stereotypes, but you have to be aware

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Speaker 1: of the stereo peotypes to perform according to them, right, right,

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Speaker 1: And then, according to Golinski as well, we don't just

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Speaker 1: think with our brains, but with our bodies and our

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Speaker 1: thought processes are based on physical quote physical experiences that

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Speaker 1: set off associated abstract concepts. Yeah, I think. I mean

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Speaker 1: this might sound kind of silly, but I think about

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Speaker 1: the way that wearing a suit jacket changes the way

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Speaker 1: I behave I think sometimes it does, and I very

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Speaker 1: much associated literally with the way my shoulders and my

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Speaker 1: arms feel. Well I put on a suit jacket, I

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Speaker 1: feel the tension in the way the jacket constrains the

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Speaker 1: movements of my shoulders or not not necessarily constrains them,

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Speaker 1: but you know, you feel you can feel the jacket

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Speaker 1: that's shaped like that, the suit jacket, and it actually

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Speaker 1: does influence I think, probably the way I talk, probably

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Speaker 1: to some extent, the way I react to people, whether

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Speaker 1: I'm more likely to shake somebody's hand. I mean, obviously

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Speaker 1: there's no way to fully test this in a controlled way,

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Speaker 1: but I strongly suspect that it changes my behavior, and

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Speaker 1: it changes my behavior through a constant, attenuated awareness of

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Speaker 1: what my body feels like in that piece of clothing.

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Speaker 1: So you're not you're not only dressing like business Joe,

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Speaker 1: you become business Joe. You know, Business Joe's different than

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Speaker 1: a lot of other business shows because the suit jackets

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Speaker 1: I wear are are not like cool business jackets. They're

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Speaker 1: more like old seventies jackets I got from my dad. Now,

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Speaker 1: I think we do need to be careful with this

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Speaker 1: kind of research because I think it's very easy to

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Speaker 1: interpret it in an overly determinative way. For example, I

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Speaker 1: was I was wondering, Okay, are there studies that have

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Speaker 1: found the opposite, that have found that this whole you know,

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Speaker 1: like wearing a black uniform doesn't actually change the way

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Speaker 1: you behave compared to wearing some other colored uniform. And yeah,

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Speaker 1: there there are studies going the opposite way, not necessarily

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Speaker 1: that undercut the original findings, but at least that showed

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Speaker 1: that the effect is obviously not the same in all contexts.

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Speaker 1: For example, the search has been applied to uniform colors

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Speaker 1: in professional sports, and I found a two thousand ten

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Speaker 1: study that found no correlation at all between uniform color

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Speaker 1: and aggression in professional hockey. This is the basic argument

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Speaker 1: was that like if you wore red, right, if you

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Speaker 1: wear like a red uniform or a black uniform or something,

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Speaker 1: that you're going to be more aggressive than if you

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Speaker 1: wear like a blue uniform or green uniform. And this

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Speaker 1: study found no correlation of that kind, said it didn't

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Speaker 1: matter what color uniforms the hockey players were wearing. But

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Speaker 1: like I said, it doesn't mean the original research is wrong,

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Speaker 1: just that it probably applies differently in different contexts and

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Speaker 1: depends on a lot of different variables. So, but back

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Speaker 1: to what was Ye's research to establish the idea of

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Speaker 1: the proteus effect. So, in a serious experiment, starting with

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Speaker 1: one published in two thousand seven, Ye and colleagues tried

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Speaker 1: to study whether the same perception embodiment, whether the same

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Speaker 1: like embodiment of what others see you looking like that

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Speaker 1: takes place with clothes and costumes also takes place with

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Speaker 1: virtual costumes, meaning virtual characters. Does the virtual avatar that

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Speaker 1: you choose to represent you in a video game or

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Speaker 1: a virtual world change who you are and how you

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Speaker 1: behave Now this question instantly makes me think back to

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Speaker 1: screens that I've seen a second life. I have not,

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Speaker 1: I've never really used second life myself, but they never

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Speaker 1: really Does that mean you have a little bit? Well,

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Speaker 1: what I did is that I attended a church service

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Speaker 1: where the the individual giving the sermon also did the

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Speaker 1: sermon in second life, and there were individuals gathered from,

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Speaker 1: you know, across the country, and I guess beyond in

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Speaker 1: a virtual if that's the right word for a second

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Speaker 1: life environment, a virtual chapel uh to share in the sermon.

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Speaker 1: And they were attending in various forms. So some people

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Speaker 1: were women, some people were male, some people were like

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Speaker 1: animals or animal human hybrids. So that is I instantly

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Speaker 1: thought to that and thought, well, you know, I wonder

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Speaker 1: what was going on in each of their minds, Like

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Speaker 1: what did their chosen forms say about their ideal identity,

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Speaker 1: their experienced identity, etcetera. I've never considered this question before,

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Speaker 1: but what generally would the theologians of the various religions

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Speaker 1: say about whether the rituals and sacraments of their religion

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Speaker 1: are effective if performed virtually. So like, if you, for example,

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Speaker 1: receive holy communion in a Christian church, or do a

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Speaker 1: ritual in any religion, but do it not physically with

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Speaker 1: your body, but virtually in a virtual environment, does the

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Speaker 1: sacrament work? Does it confer the same benefit? Huh? Well,

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Speaker 1: that's a great question. I don't recall. I don't think

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Speaker 1: this particular service involved communion, but maybe it did, and

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Speaker 1: I just forgot about it. I imagine that, though, of course,

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Speaker 1: would hinge upon your faith, you know, particular beliefs about communion.

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Speaker 1: Uh for instance, so whether the bread actually becomes the

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Speaker 1: body of Christ in your body, that sort of thing.

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Speaker 1: But then again, if if you believe that, then why

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Speaker 1: can't the the digital communion wafer do the same thing? Somehow?

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Speaker 1: I don't know. Well, it takes me back to the

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Speaker 1: techno religion question we are. I don't know if we

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Speaker 1: ever got into this question in our techno religion episodes,

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Speaker 1: but we did talk about the idea of whether a

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Speaker 1: virtual similar simulated prayer wheel is just as effective as

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Speaker 1: a physical prayer wheel. That's right, Uh yeah, because of course,

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Speaker 1: the the the traditional prayer wheels are essentially a machine

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Speaker 1: praised in what tradition? Is it Buddhist or Buddhist? Yes?

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Speaker 1: Uh so, it's it's a wheel that contains h the

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Speaker 1: prayer as it's usually like written down on sheet of

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Speaker 1: paper and or not a sheet of paper, but it's

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Speaker 1: a long string of paper coiled up in there, and

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Speaker 1: by by turning it, you are turning the prayer. Uh.

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Speaker 1: But how is that really that different from a digital

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Speaker 1: machine doing the same thing. It's just a it's an

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Speaker 1: advancement in the technology, but but it doesn't seem like

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Speaker 1: it's an advancement in the basic idea. Well, I find

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Speaker 1: that a very interesting question, and maybe we can come

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Speaker 1: back to it in the future. But we are getting

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Speaker 1: off subject. Okay, So we're looking at the first study

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Speaker 1: by Ye and colleagues, and this was in two thousand

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Speaker 1: seven and human Communication research, And what the researchers did

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Speaker 1: in the study is compare subjects with a virtual avatar

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Speaker 1: designed to be either attractive or unattractive. So they had

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Speaker 1: these virtual avatars that were rated as attractive avatars or

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Speaker 1: not very attractive ones, and then they had the subjects

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Speaker 1: who embodied those avatars, who were paired with them interact

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Speaker 1: with a virtual stranger controlled by a lab assistant, and

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Speaker 1: subjects with attractive virtual representation. So if you got a

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Speaker 1: very good looking avatar, they behaved differently than those with

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Speaker 1: unattractive ones. The virtually attractive players got closer to their

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Speaker 1: conversation partners, and they shared more personal information with these

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Speaker 1: virtual rangers than people who had been given unattractive avatars

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Speaker 1: to perform with. So that's kind of interesting because the

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Speaker 1: attractiveness of your avatar doesn't change anything about you. Right,

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Speaker 1: It doesn't change whether you are naturally a confident or

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Speaker 1: attractive person, does it. Well, that's kind of the question here, right,

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Speaker 1: It does taking on this virtual skin change your performance?

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Speaker 1: Are you like fully sleaving yourself into this identity? I mean,

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Speaker 1: I guess it wouldn't change what you physically look like.

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Speaker 1: It might have a time, but it doesn't. It doesn't

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Speaker 1: immediately change what you physically look like, but it might

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Speaker 1: actually change the way your brain works. In another study,

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Speaker 1: you found a similar thing. Uh. The researchers found that

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Speaker 1: the height of a virtual character avatar influenced behavior in

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Speaker 1: a virtual bargaining task. So they had people go into

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Speaker 1: a virtual world. You go into like this video game environment,

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Speaker 1: and you have to bargain with somebody, and people with

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Speaker 1: taller avatars relative to their virtual conversation partner negotiated more

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Speaker 1: aggressively than people who are given shorter avatars. So it's

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Speaker 1: not that you're a taller person in real life, but

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Speaker 1: if you're just given a taller character to play as

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Speaker 1: in the virtual world, you act with more like aggressive

430
00:24:12,359 --> 00:24:17,679
Speaker 1: bargaining tactics and confidence. Interesting, it becomes a situation where, again,

431
00:24:18,520 --> 00:24:21,640
Speaker 1: humans have not evolved for this, we've evolved to deal

432
00:24:21,680 --> 00:24:24,680
Speaker 1: with things in the real and when we deal when

433
00:24:24,720 --> 00:24:28,200
Speaker 1: we deal with things in the virtual world, we are

434
00:24:28,240 --> 00:24:33,480
Speaker 1: still behaving as if we are beholding a physical presence. Yeah,

435
00:24:33,520 --> 00:24:37,199
Speaker 1: but maybe that's not so surprising, right, because what this

436
00:24:37,320 --> 00:24:40,800
Speaker 1: is is that the avatar is changing our behavior within

437
00:24:40,880 --> 00:24:44,120
Speaker 1: the virtual world itself. You're given a character to perform

438
00:24:44,240 --> 00:24:46,800
Speaker 1: as inside a virtual world. It changes how you behave

439
00:24:46,880 --> 00:24:49,720
Speaker 1: in the virtual world. The big question would be does

440
00:24:49,760 --> 00:24:53,159
Speaker 1: this change carry over into the rest of your life, Like,

441
00:24:53,280 --> 00:24:56,520
Speaker 1: once you leave the garment of a digital avatar behind,

442
00:24:57,000 --> 00:25:01,040
Speaker 1: are there lingering effects? So if you play a giant

443
00:25:01,280 --> 00:25:04,679
Speaker 1: for an hour in a virtual environment, or certainly you

444
00:25:04,720 --> 00:25:07,239
Speaker 1: embody a giant for that amount of time, do you

445
00:25:07,280 --> 00:25:11,240
Speaker 1: then leave your virtual session behaving as a giant. Yes.

446
00:25:11,680 --> 00:25:14,640
Speaker 1: And in a two thousand nine study, Y and colleagues

447
00:25:14,680 --> 00:25:18,960
Speaker 1: investigated this. So they attempted to replicate the attractiveness study

448
00:25:19,040 --> 00:25:21,639
Speaker 1: from the previous paper, right, So you'd get assigned an

449
00:25:21,640 --> 00:25:25,000
Speaker 1: avatar that was either attractive or not attractive. And then

450
00:25:25,040 --> 00:25:27,760
Speaker 1: they added a second stage to the experiment. They had

451
00:25:27,920 --> 00:25:32,160
Speaker 1: an additional task outside the original virtual environment, So subjects

452
00:25:32,160 --> 00:25:35,080
Speaker 1: were given an avatar attractive or unattractive. Then they had

453
00:25:35,119 --> 00:25:38,000
Speaker 1: to do the interaction task from the first study. Then

454
00:25:38,160 --> 00:25:41,199
Speaker 1: after that they left the virtual environment and they were

455
00:25:41,240 --> 00:25:43,720
Speaker 1: asked to participate in what they were told was a

456
00:25:43,800 --> 00:25:46,640
Speaker 1: different study. It's like, do you want to do another study? Now?

457
00:25:47,119 --> 00:25:50,400
Speaker 1: This one was about online dating, and the participants were

458
00:25:50,440 --> 00:25:53,680
Speaker 1: asked to create a profile on a college dating site

459
00:25:53,720 --> 00:25:55,400
Speaker 1: that had been set up. It was like a mock site,

460
00:25:55,440 --> 00:25:57,879
Speaker 1: not a real one. And they were giving photos of

461
00:25:58,000 --> 00:26:00,679
Speaker 1: nine people of the gender they were interested in dating,

462
00:26:01,080 --> 00:26:03,760
Speaker 1: and then asked to pick two of the nine that

463
00:26:03,840 --> 00:26:06,119
Speaker 1: they would most like to get to know better and

464
00:26:06,200 --> 00:26:09,160
Speaker 1: get in contact with. And the study found that people

465
00:26:09,160 --> 00:26:14,560
Speaker 1: who had been given attractive avatars chose more attractive partners

466
00:26:14,680 --> 00:26:17,200
Speaker 1: on the dating site, and people who had been given

467
00:26:17,320 --> 00:26:21,480
Speaker 1: less attractive avatars chose less attractive partners to contact on

468
00:26:21,520 --> 00:26:23,920
Speaker 1: the dating site. And this would all seem to indicate

469
00:26:23,960 --> 00:26:27,280
Speaker 1: that the attractiveness of the virtual character, the avatar they'd

470
00:26:27,359 --> 00:26:31,600
Speaker 1: been given, was still shaping self perception and confidence and

471
00:26:31,680 --> 00:26:35,560
Speaker 1: behavior even after the players logged out and moved on

472
00:26:35,560 --> 00:26:38,760
Speaker 1: to other things. So we we are seeing the lingering

473
00:26:38,800 --> 00:26:42,359
Speaker 1: effects then of the virtual body. We are this is

474
00:26:42,359 --> 00:26:45,240
Speaker 1: the proteus effect in action. Well, I mean it makes

475
00:26:45,240 --> 00:26:47,919
Speaker 1: me wonder. So when I was in seventh grade or whatever,

476
00:26:48,280 --> 00:26:52,280
Speaker 1: and I was creating ridiculous looking wrestlers with like huge

477
00:26:52,400 --> 00:26:55,480
Speaker 1: legs and stuff to get beat down by stone cold

478
00:26:55,480 --> 00:26:57,680
Speaker 1: Steve Austin and my friends and I laughed and thought

479
00:26:57,680 --> 00:27:00,600
Speaker 1: it was funny. Did this follow me? How was different

480
00:27:00,680 --> 00:27:03,160
Speaker 1: after I stopped playing the game? Or was? I mean,

481
00:27:03,160 --> 00:27:05,840
Speaker 1: maybe it had no effect, But did this change who

482
00:27:05,880 --> 00:27:08,320
Speaker 1: I was when I was a little mill schooler. Huh,

483
00:27:08,560 --> 00:27:10,440
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, I'm having to go back

484
00:27:10,440 --> 00:27:13,880
Speaker 1: and think on my past a video game experience as well.

485
00:27:13,920 --> 00:27:17,400
Speaker 1: I mean, because when one issue that comes up specifically

486
00:27:17,680 --> 00:27:22,440
Speaker 1: deals with the use of sexy characters, especially that's sort

487
00:27:22,440 --> 00:27:27,720
Speaker 1: of sexy female characters that you often encounter in fantasy

488
00:27:27,720 --> 00:27:30,960
Speaker 1: and sci fi properties. You know, maybe it's the their

489
00:27:30,960 --> 00:27:34,720
Speaker 1: scantily dressed or we've all seen examples of this where

490
00:27:34,760 --> 00:27:38,080
Speaker 1: the uh, the male figure has more traditional armor and

491
00:27:38,160 --> 00:27:41,879
Speaker 1: the female figure has armor that makes no sense of

492
00:27:42,160 --> 00:27:45,800
Speaker 1: within the confines of an actual combat scenario. It's just

493
00:27:45,880 --> 00:27:50,080
Speaker 1: all about revealing the feminine form. Yeah, totally. I remember

494
00:27:50,119 --> 00:27:53,399
Speaker 1: before I was even aware, really, when I was much younger,

495
00:27:53,400 --> 00:27:56,040
Speaker 1: when I was not really aware yet of feminist critiques

496
00:27:56,080 --> 00:27:58,920
Speaker 1: of video games or anything like that. I do remember

497
00:27:58,920 --> 00:28:02,240
Speaker 1: seeing some of the character designs for female characters and

498
00:28:02,359 --> 00:28:05,040
Speaker 1: thinking my younger self, like that just doesn't make a

499
00:28:05,040 --> 00:28:06,880
Speaker 1: lot of sense. I don't think she would be very

500
00:28:06,880 --> 00:28:09,760
Speaker 1: warm in that. Yeah, but yeah, obviously this is a

501
00:28:09,760 --> 00:28:13,000
Speaker 1: big question in video game design and stuff like that.

502
00:28:13,040 --> 00:28:17,480
Speaker 1: The the objectification, especially of female bodies in these games

503
00:28:17,920 --> 00:28:20,880
Speaker 1: is a big cultural point to talk about. But the

504
00:28:20,920 --> 00:28:22,920
Speaker 1: idea of the proteus effect takes it a little bit

505
00:28:22,960 --> 00:28:26,320
Speaker 1: farther right. So it's not just an idea of how

506
00:28:26,440 --> 00:28:29,720
Speaker 1: women's bodies are represented in the games and to what

507
00:28:29,880 --> 00:28:34,520
Speaker 1: extent the way they're represented is empowering or disempowering, But

508
00:28:34,640 --> 00:28:37,160
Speaker 1: it also has to do with how it affects us

509
00:28:37,200 --> 00:28:41,520
Speaker 1: to play as these types of characters exactly. So I

510
00:28:41,600 --> 00:28:43,920
Speaker 1: ran across a paper that deals with this two thousand

511
00:28:43,960 --> 00:28:47,920
Speaker 1: twelve paper titled the Embodiment of Sexualized Virtual Selves, the

512
00:28:48,000 --> 00:28:53,120
Speaker 1: Proteus Effect and Experiences of Self Objectification via Avatars. This

513
00:28:53,200 --> 00:28:58,360
Speaker 1: is by Jesse Fox, Jeremy In Baylinson, and lose to Case.

514
00:28:58,920 --> 00:29:01,560
Speaker 1: So in this study, they took the proteus effect and

515
00:29:01,600 --> 00:29:05,160
Speaker 1: they studied it in the light of of two other

516
00:29:05,320 --> 00:29:09,400
Speaker 1: key factors. First of all, objectification theory. So this is

517
00:29:09,440 --> 00:29:14,600
Speaker 1: the idea that society treats women as depersonalized objects rather

518
00:29:14,680 --> 00:29:18,480
Speaker 1: than individuals mere sexual bodies, and that women come to

519
00:29:18,600 --> 00:29:22,880
Speaker 1: internalize this and learn to see and value themselves based

520
00:29:22,920 --> 00:29:26,880
Speaker 1: on their physical appearance. And this is known as self objectification.

521
00:29:27,600 --> 00:29:31,920
Speaker 1: And then the other is rape myth acceptance. So, simply put,

522
00:29:32,320 --> 00:29:35,920
Speaker 1: the acceptance of various myths concerning rape, most famously, that

523
00:29:36,080 --> 00:29:39,320
Speaker 1: dressing a certain way, going certain places, are behaving in

524
00:29:39,360 --> 00:29:42,719
Speaker 1: certain ways means that the woman is quote unquote asking

525
00:29:42,800 --> 00:29:45,479
Speaker 1: for it. It's like shifting the blame onto the victim

526
00:29:45,520 --> 00:29:48,080
Speaker 1: of the rape. Yeah, yeah, it's it's victim blaming, pure

527
00:29:48,120 --> 00:29:52,520
Speaker 1: and simple. It's it's repellent, and it's also truly damaging because,

528
00:29:52,560 --> 00:29:55,080
Speaker 1: as the authors point out, past studies have found that

529
00:29:55,160 --> 00:29:59,240
Speaker 1: women who accept these myths don't take proper precautions against grape,

530
00:29:59,560 --> 00:30:02,360
Speaker 1: and men who accept these myths are more likely to

531
00:30:02,400 --> 00:30:05,200
Speaker 1: commit rape. Okay, So the researchers here, they went into

532
00:30:05,200 --> 00:30:07,800
Speaker 1: their study with two predictions. First, they figured that the

533
00:30:07,920 --> 00:30:11,640
Speaker 1: use of sexualized avatars would result in more body related thoughts.

534
00:30:12,400 --> 00:30:15,640
Speaker 1: And then second, participants who wear a sexualized avatar will

535
00:30:15,680 --> 00:30:19,720
Speaker 1: express more rape myth acceptance or or r m A. Okay.

536
00:30:19,720 --> 00:30:21,760
Speaker 1: So the idea here is if you are given an

537
00:30:21,800 --> 00:30:26,160
Speaker 1: avatar in a virtual environment that that has all these

538
00:30:26,240 --> 00:30:30,880
Speaker 1: overtly sexualized features, that's designed in a sexually objectified way,

539
00:30:31,280 --> 00:30:36,160
Speaker 1: it's going to increase your self objectification and it's going

540
00:30:36,200 --> 00:30:39,640
Speaker 1: to increase the likelihood that you will accept these harmful

541
00:30:39,680 --> 00:30:42,960
Speaker 1: myths about rape. Right, It's basically one way of looking

542
00:30:43,000 --> 00:30:45,240
Speaker 1: at it is Okay, so you have an image of

543
00:30:44,880 --> 00:30:51,560
Speaker 1: a scantily clad eleven warrior, Okay, that depiction of even

544
00:30:51,600 --> 00:30:55,880
Speaker 1: a non human technically female form that is the at

545
00:30:55,920 --> 00:30:58,720
Speaker 1: least partially the result of all of this, these these

546
00:30:58,720 --> 00:31:02,360
Speaker 1: cultural energies, the cultural practices and beliefs that are taking

547
00:31:02,360 --> 00:31:07,600
Speaker 1: place and uh and sort of pressurizing this into form.

548
00:31:07,640 --> 00:31:10,480
Speaker 1: And then if you embody that form, then you are

549
00:31:10,640 --> 00:31:13,560
Speaker 1: subject to those uh, those pressures as well. If that

550
00:31:13,600 --> 00:31:15,560
Speaker 1: makes sense. Yeah, totally. A lot of the way the

551
00:31:15,560 --> 00:31:20,360
Speaker 1: proteus effect seems to work is by importing of stereotyped behavior.

552
00:31:21,000 --> 00:31:24,760
Speaker 1: So you there are stereotypes about how a person who

553
00:31:24,800 --> 00:31:27,560
Speaker 1: looks like X is supposed to behave When you're given

554
00:31:27,720 --> 00:31:31,040
Speaker 1: a character that looks like that looks like X to embody,

555
00:31:31,440 --> 00:31:35,000
Speaker 1: you begin behaving with those stereotypes in mind, yeah, and

556
00:31:35,000 --> 00:31:38,160
Speaker 1: and so and even subconsciously. It's not necessarily you know,

557
00:31:38,200 --> 00:31:42,200
Speaker 1: an avert practice practices going on here. So, this particular

558
00:31:42,200 --> 00:31:46,280
Speaker 1: study involved eighty six female participants from a West Coast university,

559
00:31:46,760 --> 00:31:50,000
Speaker 1: ages eighteen through forty one, and uh, it was a

560
00:31:50,040 --> 00:31:55,160
Speaker 1: reasonably racially diverse group as well. Why twenty four point

561
00:31:55,200 --> 00:31:58,280
Speaker 1: four percent Asian or Asian Americans, seven percent Black, too

562
00:31:58,600 --> 00:32:01,880
Speaker 1: point three percent Latino, two point three percent multi racial,

563
00:32:02,000 --> 00:32:05,120
Speaker 1: and five point eight percent other. And they were placed

564
00:32:05,160 --> 00:32:08,920
Speaker 1: in a fully immersive VR RIG. Participants had their photographs

565
00:32:08,920 --> 00:32:12,400
Speaker 1: taken with a digital camera for a presumably unrelated study

566
00:32:12,720 --> 00:32:16,720
Speaker 1: so that these could be worn as faces, essentially so

567
00:32:16,760 --> 00:32:20,920
Speaker 1: they could give their virtual avatar their own face and uh,

568
00:32:21,200 --> 00:32:24,480
Speaker 1: and they also allowed for others to uh to wear

569
00:32:24,560 --> 00:32:27,760
Speaker 1: an appropriately aged female face that was not their own.

570
00:32:28,320 --> 00:32:31,680
Speaker 1: So here's how the study went down. They were randomly

571
00:32:31,720 --> 00:32:36,080
Speaker 1: assigned to one of four conditions. Either a sexualized version

572
00:32:36,120 --> 00:32:41,000
Speaker 1: of themselves so it's it's their face but the sexualized

573
00:32:41,040 --> 00:32:44,640
Speaker 1: avatar body, a sexualized other where they're just in a

574
00:32:44,680 --> 00:32:47,640
Speaker 1: sexualized body but it's just somebody else's face on their

575
00:32:47,720 --> 00:32:51,960
Speaker 1: random character non sexualized self. So it's you and you know,

576
00:32:52,240 --> 00:32:54,680
Speaker 1: I guess you know, you're just dressed in normal virtual

577
00:32:54,720 --> 00:32:59,200
Speaker 1: clothing and then non sexualized other where you're a non

578
00:32:59,240 --> 00:33:02,120
Speaker 1: sexualized per some of the different face. And then they

579
00:33:02,120 --> 00:33:04,200
Speaker 1: had them interact with a male Well, first of all,

580
00:33:04,200 --> 00:33:06,160
Speaker 1: they had to look in a mirror to sort of

581
00:33:06,160 --> 00:33:08,840
Speaker 1: behold themselves, and then they interacted with a male character.

582
00:33:09,760 --> 00:33:14,360
Speaker 1: The researchers found that indeed, participants in sexualized conditions reported

583
00:33:14,400 --> 00:33:18,880
Speaker 1: significantly more body related thoughts. UH, So the face itself

584
00:33:18,920 --> 00:33:22,040
Speaker 1: had no effect there as for rape myth acceptance of

585
00:33:22,280 --> 00:33:24,920
Speaker 1: judged by the use of Bird's r m A scale

586
00:33:24,960 --> 00:33:29,320
Speaker 1: from UH which uses a series of questions, this is

587
00:33:29,320 --> 00:33:32,440
Speaker 1: what they They found out. Participants who wore the sexualized

588
00:33:32,480 --> 00:33:35,960
Speaker 1: self expressed greater r M A than participants with a

589
00:33:36,040 --> 00:33:39,360
Speaker 1: sexualized other, and there was no significant difference between the

590
00:33:39,400 --> 00:33:43,240
Speaker 1: two non sexualized m v our bodies. Well that's a

591
00:33:43,280 --> 00:33:46,960
Speaker 1: disturbing finding. Now, the authors and all this, they acknowledged

592
00:33:47,000 --> 00:33:49,960
Speaker 1: that this was a small study limited in scope. You know,

593
00:33:49,960 --> 00:33:54,000
Speaker 1: it's just less than a hundred women from a single college.

594
00:33:54,440 --> 00:33:57,360
Speaker 1: But they concluded from this that women can be affected

595
00:33:57,520 --> 00:34:01,000
Speaker 1: negatively by the avatars they wear and it can alter

596
00:34:01,120 --> 00:34:03,720
Speaker 1: their behavior both on and offline. I think that would

597
00:34:03,720 --> 00:34:05,840
Speaker 1: be an important thing to keep looking into and see

598
00:34:05,840 --> 00:34:08,359
Speaker 1: if you can replicate, because I mean, there are tons

599
00:34:08,360 --> 00:34:10,640
Speaker 1: of video games that, as you said, have these overtly

600
00:34:11,320 --> 00:34:15,279
Speaker 1: sexualized female bodies that characters or that players in body,

601
00:34:15,360 --> 00:34:17,680
Speaker 1: and if it leads to something as truly harmful as

602
00:34:17,719 --> 00:34:21,200
Speaker 1: acceptance of dangerous rape myths and victim blaming, this is

603
00:34:21,239 --> 00:34:24,080
Speaker 1: something that could have a very strong effect on society

604
00:34:24,120 --> 00:34:26,239
Speaker 1: and would be important to know. Yeah, and likewise I

605
00:34:26,520 --> 00:34:28,880
Speaker 1: would I would love to see more on the potential

606
00:34:28,920 --> 00:34:32,440
Speaker 1: effects on male players as well, because the argument here

607
00:34:32,480 --> 00:34:35,200
Speaker 1: is not that that females are wired in a weird

608
00:34:35,239 --> 00:34:38,600
Speaker 1: way and therefore are susceptible to this influence, susceptible to

609
00:34:39,000 --> 00:34:43,440
Speaker 1: like the sexual proteus effect. Obviously men would be susceptible

610
00:34:43,480 --> 00:34:47,280
Speaker 1: to this too, even though the stereotypes that are involved

611
00:34:47,320 --> 00:34:51,120
Speaker 1: in this particular study are very female centric. But maby

612
00:34:51,200 --> 00:34:53,200
Speaker 1: comes back to the wrestling games for instance. You know,

613
00:34:53,280 --> 00:34:56,160
Speaker 1: like what happens if a male player is then putting

614
00:34:56,160 --> 00:34:59,680
Speaker 1: their face on this body with this like ridiculous muscle

615
00:34:59,719 --> 00:35:03,480
Speaker 1: man Zeke and then engaging in physical violence uh with

616
00:35:03,600 --> 00:35:06,720
Speaker 1: a with another character, Like what what kind of protein

617
00:35:06,760 --> 00:35:09,160
Speaker 1: effect would that have on the individual? Yeah? I think

618
00:35:09,320 --> 00:35:12,920
Speaker 1: one thing that's not clear yet is how potentially strong

619
00:35:13,120 --> 00:35:16,640
Speaker 1: this effect is. Um. Now, there are obviously going to

620
00:35:16,719 --> 00:35:19,480
Speaker 1: be variables no matter what, even if we don't know

621
00:35:19,480 --> 00:35:21,440
Speaker 1: what they are yet, They're gonna be variables that make

622
00:35:21,520 --> 00:35:24,080
Speaker 1: this effect stronger or less strong to the extent that

623
00:35:24,160 --> 00:35:28,080
Speaker 1: it's true at all. But I wonder how potentially strong

624
00:35:28,360 --> 00:35:30,719
Speaker 1: is it? You know what I mean? Like at its

625
00:35:30,920 --> 00:35:33,600
Speaker 1: most strong, will it have a little bit of an

626
00:35:33,600 --> 00:35:36,200
Speaker 1: effect that we walk away with when we're done playing

627
00:35:36,239 --> 00:35:39,080
Speaker 1: the game? Or are there ways that you could tweak

628
00:35:39,120 --> 00:35:43,080
Speaker 1: and fine tune the gaming and avatar embodiment experience that

629
00:35:43,160 --> 00:35:48,080
Speaker 1: could have radical or revolutionary self editing types of effects?

630
00:35:48,320 --> 00:35:50,640
Speaker 1: You know? Like I'm almost wondering if there could be

631
00:35:50,680 --> 00:35:53,879
Speaker 1: like avatar therapy, Like you have a person who has

632
00:35:54,400 --> 00:35:58,839
Speaker 1: harmful or self destructive types of self perception issues, and

633
00:35:58,920 --> 00:36:02,640
Speaker 1: that with a finely tweaked virtual environment and finally tweaked

634
00:36:02,719 --> 00:36:06,560
Speaker 1: type of avatar, you could actually treat that sort of condition. Yeah, well,

635
00:36:06,600 --> 00:36:08,200
Speaker 1: I mean it just wouldn't be the first time people

636
00:36:08,239 --> 00:36:13,440
Speaker 1: have proposed treating or studied the treatment of various ailments

637
00:36:13,440 --> 00:36:16,480
Speaker 1: through virtual reality. Different studies into the use of virtuality

638
00:36:16,520 --> 00:36:20,680
Speaker 1: to treat nicotine addiction, for example, or a post traumatic

639
00:36:20,719 --> 00:36:24,600
Speaker 1: stress disorders. So, uh, I mean that's one of the

640
00:36:24,680 --> 00:36:27,120
Speaker 1: things about virtual reality is that there's there, there are

641
00:36:27,120 --> 00:36:31,440
Speaker 1: a number of possibilities there beyond mirror entertainment or distraction.

642
00:36:32,000 --> 00:36:34,520
Speaker 1: And uh and we should probably cover more of them

643
00:36:34,560 --> 00:36:36,879
Speaker 1: on the show. I feel like we've we haven't really

644
00:36:36,920 --> 00:36:39,920
Speaker 1: touched on VR and in quite a while. Yeah. Absolutely. Now,

645
00:36:39,960 --> 00:36:41,799
Speaker 1: one thing I've read along these lines is that I

646
00:36:41,800 --> 00:36:44,759
Speaker 1: came across the study from fourteen applying the idea of

647
00:36:44,800 --> 00:36:49,200
Speaker 1: the proteus effect to the idea of exercise games. So

648
00:36:49,360 --> 00:36:53,480
Speaker 1: this was a study published by Benjamin Lee at All

649
00:36:53,560 --> 00:36:57,400
Speaker 1: in Games for Health Research, Development and Clinical Applications. So

650
00:36:57,480 --> 00:37:00,960
Speaker 1: this was a study about exercise as games and how

651
00:37:01,000 --> 00:37:04,239
Speaker 1: they can be used to try to encourage fitness behaviors

652
00:37:04,239 --> 00:37:07,800
Speaker 1: and children. And study was called we Myself and Size

653
00:37:08,760 --> 00:37:12,120
Speaker 1: the influence of proteus effect and stereotype threat on overweight

654
00:37:12,200 --> 00:37:15,680
Speaker 1: children's exercise motivation and behavior and excer games. So this

655
00:37:15,719 --> 00:37:17,160
Speaker 1: is going to be one example of the kind of

656
00:37:17,160 --> 00:37:19,879
Speaker 1: thing I was just talking about, right, like taking advantage

657
00:37:19,920 --> 00:37:24,000
Speaker 1: of the proteus effect to try to optimize people's performance

658
00:37:24,040 --> 00:37:26,759
Speaker 1: and self improvement behaviors. And the idea here is that

659
00:37:27,040 --> 00:37:30,440
Speaker 1: if you can get children to exercise more based on

660
00:37:30,560 --> 00:37:34,600
Speaker 1: exercise video games by using different types of avatars. So

661
00:37:34,960 --> 00:37:37,799
Speaker 1: they tested a hundred and forty children between nine and

662
00:37:37,840 --> 00:37:41,560
Speaker 1: twelve years of age who were overweight. The dependent variables

663
00:37:41,600 --> 00:37:46,840
Speaker 1: they tested were exercise attitudes of the children, exercise motivation

664
00:37:46,920 --> 00:37:51,160
Speaker 1: that was platform specific, specifically like how motivated are you

665
00:37:51,200 --> 00:37:54,200
Speaker 1: to exercise on this we game you've got, and then

666
00:37:54,239 --> 00:37:58,239
Speaker 1: finally their their performance inside the exercise game, And what

667
00:37:58,360 --> 00:38:01,719
Speaker 1: they ultimately claimed to find is that overweight children who

668
00:38:01,719 --> 00:38:07,520
Speaker 1: were given avatars that looked overweight performed worse compared to

669
00:38:07,760 --> 00:38:11,360
Speaker 1: children who were given avatars of a normal body size.

670
00:38:11,719 --> 00:38:14,440
Speaker 1: So if you're given an avatar that looks fitter, that

671
00:38:14,600 --> 00:38:18,360
Speaker 1: looks healthier, you do better in all four of the

672
00:38:18,400 --> 00:38:22,560
Speaker 1: dependent variable categories. And they also tested stuff about stereotype

673
00:38:22,600 --> 00:38:26,520
Speaker 1: threat like whether giving these children negative stereotypes about exercise

674
00:38:26,600 --> 00:38:30,840
Speaker 1: motivation and overweight children would hurt their performance, and that

675
00:38:30,960 --> 00:38:33,919
Speaker 1: also did seem to matter. So it turns out that

676
00:38:34,000 --> 00:38:36,960
Speaker 1: you don't want to give children negative stereotypes about how

677
00:38:36,960 --> 00:38:39,480
Speaker 1: they might perform in these video games if you want

678
00:38:39,480 --> 00:38:42,279
Speaker 1: them to do better. But also just changing what the

679
00:38:42,320 --> 00:38:45,960
Speaker 1: avatar they use looks like can really matter in how

680
00:38:46,000 --> 00:38:50,359
Speaker 1: they do with exercise motivation and exercise performance in the games. Well,

681
00:38:50,400 --> 00:38:53,200
Speaker 1: I've never played a fitness video game per se, but

682
00:38:53,360 --> 00:38:55,040
Speaker 1: I can I can second see where that would that

683
00:38:55,040 --> 00:38:57,640
Speaker 1: would happen effect. Yet again, I want to ask the

684
00:38:57,719 --> 00:39:00,920
Speaker 1: question I asked a minute ago. I wonder, to whatever

685
00:39:01,000 --> 00:39:05,279
Speaker 1: extent this effect is real, how strong could it possibly be?

686
00:39:06,160 --> 00:39:08,120
Speaker 1: Like is the most you could hope for that you'll

687
00:39:08,160 --> 00:39:11,160
Speaker 1: get a slight improvement with this kind of thing? Or

688
00:39:11,200 --> 00:39:14,080
Speaker 1: could you tweak and keep testing these types of avatar

689
00:39:14,239 --> 00:39:18,120
Speaker 1: changes until you find just the right formula to really

690
00:39:18,160 --> 00:39:20,600
Speaker 1: make a huge difference in the way people's brains work

691
00:39:20,640 --> 00:39:25,319
Speaker 1: in these tasks. Yea. Indeed. Indeed, another interesting way that

692
00:39:25,719 --> 00:39:29,520
Speaker 1: I found this being studied was the idea of performing

693
00:39:29,920 --> 00:39:35,600
Speaker 1: stereotyped gendered behaviors in video games based on the gender

694
00:39:35,640 --> 00:39:38,799
Speaker 1: of the avatar you're you've you've been given, so they're

695
00:39:39,000 --> 00:39:43,320
Speaker 1: stereotypes about how certain genders should behave in video games.

696
00:39:43,320 --> 00:39:47,240
Speaker 1: One would be that there's a stereotype that females would

697
00:39:47,760 --> 00:39:49,880
Speaker 1: like in a in a battle game where you're like

698
00:39:49,920 --> 00:39:53,239
Speaker 1: dealing damaged to enemies and then performing healing spells or

699
00:39:53,280 --> 00:39:55,880
Speaker 1: something like that, where you're healing yourself and healing others.

700
00:39:56,000 --> 00:39:59,280
Speaker 1: This would be a massive multiplayer online deal where you're

701
00:39:59,400 --> 00:40:04,239
Speaker 1: you're playing with other human players yea in the virtual realm. Yeah,

702
00:40:04,239 --> 00:40:06,359
Speaker 1: So imagine a game like World of war Craft or something.

703
00:40:06,400 --> 00:40:08,400
Speaker 1: You can you can like hack at the monster, you

704
00:40:08,400 --> 00:40:12,000
Speaker 1: can heal yourself, and the stereotype would say that, well,

705
00:40:12,400 --> 00:40:14,880
Speaker 1: male players are gonna hack more and heal less, and

706
00:40:14,920 --> 00:40:17,560
Speaker 1: that female players are gonna heal more and hack less

707
00:40:17,800 --> 00:40:20,799
Speaker 1: to whatever. That that might not be true about real

708
00:40:20,840 --> 00:40:23,239
Speaker 1: performance with gender identity at all, but that's like the

709
00:40:23,239 --> 00:40:27,480
Speaker 1: stereotyped idea. And it turns out that players that that

710
00:40:27,560 --> 00:40:31,120
Speaker 1: difference doesn't appear so much in the actual gender identities

711
00:40:31,160 --> 00:40:35,160
Speaker 1: of players, but it does appear more so with the

712
00:40:35,360 --> 00:40:39,360
Speaker 1: virtual identities of characters. So whether or not the player

713
00:40:39,560 --> 00:40:43,480
Speaker 1: is actually actually identifies as male or female, the character

714
00:40:43,640 --> 00:40:47,239
Speaker 1: that they're playing as in the game will conform to

715
00:40:47,320 --> 00:40:51,720
Speaker 1: those stereotyped behaviors. More like people playing as virtual female

716
00:40:51,800 --> 00:40:55,920
Speaker 1: characters heal more interesting. Huh. You know, I can't help

717
00:40:55,960 --> 00:40:59,240
Speaker 1: but think again about about sky Rim as an example

718
00:41:00,000 --> 00:41:02,120
Speaker 1: of a possible example, or at least in an area

719
00:41:02,160 --> 00:41:04,480
Speaker 1: for steady and all of this where you have uh,

720
00:41:04,520 --> 00:41:08,640
Speaker 1: these various uh official expansions that came out that allowed

721
00:41:08,680 --> 00:41:12,800
Speaker 1: your character to not only marry, but to adopt children

722
00:41:12,840 --> 00:41:16,040
Speaker 1: and essentially grow a family in this game that's mostly

723
00:41:16,080 --> 00:41:20,239
Speaker 1: about killing monsters and exploring, uh, you know, to what

724
00:41:20,360 --> 00:41:23,960
Speaker 1: extent does uh does the proteus effect rear? It's it's

725
00:41:24,040 --> 00:41:26,319
Speaker 1: ugly head here as well. But indeed, could a game

726
00:41:26,360 --> 00:41:29,000
Speaker 1: like Skyrim make you a better parent? I don't know.

727
00:41:29,080 --> 00:41:31,160
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a good question. I come back to

728
00:41:31,280 --> 00:41:34,319
Speaker 1: something that this is obviously not very original idea. People

729
00:41:34,360 --> 00:41:36,720
Speaker 1: have been asking this ever since the days of Doom

730
00:41:36,880 --> 00:41:39,919
Speaker 1: and stuff in the nineties. But I wonder about the

731
00:41:39,960 --> 00:41:45,400
Speaker 1: proteus effect like effects of first person shooters. I admit

732
00:41:45,440 --> 00:41:48,000
Speaker 1: I'm not a big fan of many first person shooters.

733
00:41:48,000 --> 00:41:49,600
Speaker 1: The few that I like, you know, I like like

734
00:41:49,640 --> 00:41:53,400
Speaker 1: the Bioshot games because they've got interesting environments and storylines

735
00:41:53,440 --> 00:41:56,479
Speaker 1: and stuff. But generally I don't really like games where

736
00:41:56,480 --> 00:41:59,600
Speaker 1: you just become a gun and you're just walking around

737
00:41:59,600 --> 00:42:02,280
Speaker 1: in all you are is a gun poking into the world,

738
00:42:02,480 --> 00:42:05,239
Speaker 1: and then that gun shoots. Well there's something kind of

739
00:42:05,239 --> 00:42:09,560
Speaker 1: holy in American about that. But uh, but yeah, I

740
00:42:09,560 --> 00:42:11,879
Speaker 1: can't think of many games like that that I find

741
00:42:11,960 --> 00:42:15,359
Speaker 1: very enjoyable. I don't even bother with them generally now,

742
00:42:15,400 --> 00:42:19,360
Speaker 1: but there's something about the embodiment as a gun that

743
00:42:19,480 --> 00:42:23,719
Speaker 1: has kind of creepy proteus effect implications. Oh well, I

744
00:42:23,719 --> 00:42:25,799
Speaker 1: mean we could, we could go to an entire tangent there,

745
00:42:25,840 --> 00:42:28,360
Speaker 1: because on one hand, a gun is a tool that

746
00:42:28,480 --> 00:42:30,799
Speaker 1: you hold in the reel, and when you hold a

747
00:42:30,840 --> 00:42:34,080
Speaker 1: gun or any tool in the real your body schema

748
00:42:34,120 --> 00:42:38,040
Speaker 1: adjust to its presence and that tool or weapon, that gun,

749
00:42:38,120 --> 00:42:40,960
Speaker 1: that sword, it becomes an extension of your body. Yeah,

750
00:42:40,960 --> 00:42:43,400
Speaker 1: but in these games, it's all you see of your body.

751
00:42:43,440 --> 00:42:45,520
Speaker 1: It's the only part of you there is. We need

752
00:42:45,560 --> 00:42:47,400
Speaker 1: to play some of the updated ones because like the

753
00:42:47,480 --> 00:42:49,680
Speaker 1: latest Doom, your arms are in there because you're you're

754
00:42:49,719 --> 00:42:52,680
Speaker 1: ripping open the heads of demons, stopping their faces and

755
00:42:52,680 --> 00:42:56,799
Speaker 1: all sorts of of gory effects. Now, at the same

756
00:42:56,840 --> 00:42:59,160
Speaker 1: time that I think all this is interesting to wonder about,

757
00:42:59,200 --> 00:43:02,520
Speaker 1: I don't want to over speculator oversell confidence on video

758
00:43:02,520 --> 00:43:05,719
Speaker 1: game panic because I haven't seen any convincing evidence that

759
00:43:06,160 --> 00:43:08,200
Speaker 1: like playing a first person shooter or makes you a

760
00:43:08,280 --> 00:43:11,480
Speaker 1: killer or anything like that. But but it does make

761
00:43:11,520 --> 00:43:13,600
Speaker 1: you think. All right, well that note, We're gonna take

762
00:43:13,600 --> 00:43:15,319
Speaker 1: one more break, and when we come back, we have

763
00:43:15,520 --> 00:43:18,760
Speaker 1: a few a few additional ideas I want to share

764
00:43:18,800 --> 00:43:24,440
Speaker 1: in some closing thoughts. Alright, we're back. So we were

765
00:43:24,480 --> 00:43:28,120
Speaker 1: talking about violent video games and games where you become

766
00:43:28,160 --> 00:43:31,640
Speaker 1: a gun or a murderous space marine, or or you know,

767
00:43:31,719 --> 00:43:36,080
Speaker 1: any number of of variations on this theme. And uh,

768
00:43:36,280 --> 00:43:39,640
Speaker 1: I actually ran across a piece in Ian magazine, which

769
00:43:39,680 --> 00:43:44,560
Speaker 1: we we frequently cite. They have a wonderful uh storehouse

770
00:43:44,640 --> 00:43:49,760
Speaker 1: of of essays about a variety of topics, always thought provoking. Yeah,

771
00:43:49,840 --> 00:43:54,200
Speaker 1: and this was this one by Angela Buckingham makes the

772
00:43:54,280 --> 00:43:57,920
Speaker 1: case that murder should be illegal in virtual reality as

773
00:43:57,960 --> 00:44:01,040
Speaker 1: well as you know, our actual reality, and she uses

774
00:44:01,040 --> 00:44:03,840
Speaker 1: the produce effect to make her case. Yeah, So I

775
00:44:03,880 --> 00:44:05,799
Speaker 1: just wanted to read one quick quote from it. She says,

776
00:44:06,120 --> 00:44:09,200
Speaker 1: in an immersive virtual environment, what will it be like

777
00:44:09,360 --> 00:44:14,120
Speaker 1: to kill? Surely a terrifying, electrifying, even thrilling experience. But

778
00:44:14,239 --> 00:44:18,560
Speaker 1: by embodying killers, we risk making violence more tantalizing, training

779
00:44:18,600 --> 00:44:23,360
Speaker 1: ourselves in cruelty, and normalizing aggression. The possibility of building

780
00:44:23,640 --> 00:44:26,520
Speaker 1: fantasy worlds excites me as a filmmaker, but as a

781
00:44:26,600 --> 00:44:29,520
Speaker 1: human being, I think we must be wary. Now. I

782
00:44:29,520 --> 00:44:32,040
Speaker 1: can hear all of the video game players out there

783
00:44:32,040 --> 00:44:35,240
Speaker 1: in the audience saying like, no, don't limit my freedom.

784
00:44:35,480 --> 00:44:38,359
Speaker 1: You know, well you'll you'll say like, hold on, I've

785
00:44:38,360 --> 00:44:41,440
Speaker 1: played lots of violent video games that are highly realistic,

786
00:44:41,520 --> 00:44:44,360
Speaker 1: and you do all kinds of fighting and destruction and killing.

787
00:44:44,680 --> 00:44:47,279
Speaker 1: But I'm a perfectly peaceful person. I would never want

788
00:44:47,280 --> 00:44:49,839
Speaker 1: to hurt anybody. Uh, you know, you want to use

789
00:44:49,840 --> 00:44:54,360
Speaker 1: your yourself as the anecdotal example against what she's arguing.

790
00:44:54,400 --> 00:44:56,279
Speaker 1: But while I'm not saying I agree with her, I

791
00:44:56,280 --> 00:44:59,480
Speaker 1: think we should take this idea seriously. Yeah, it's something

792
00:44:59,520 --> 00:45:02,560
Speaker 1: to think about that, the idea that as games become

793
00:45:02,600 --> 00:45:06,719
Speaker 1: more realistic, as the way we embody the characters we

794
00:45:06,800 --> 00:45:11,040
Speaker 1: play in them becomes more immersive and more compelling, the

795
00:45:11,160 --> 00:45:16,280
Speaker 1: proteus effects that they produce could become stronger and stronger. Yeah.

796
00:45:16,320 --> 00:45:20,160
Speaker 1: And in this uh, this essay, Buckingham references the work

797
00:45:20,200 --> 00:45:24,080
Speaker 1: of German philosopher Thomas Metzinger, and uh, and I looked

798
00:45:24,160 --> 00:45:26,400
Speaker 1: up an interview with him from two thousands sixteen and

799
00:45:26,440 --> 00:45:28,680
Speaker 1: New Scientists. So I'm gonna read this, but I want

800
00:45:28,680 --> 00:45:31,560
Speaker 1: to drive home before I even read it. That Metzinger

801
00:45:31,760 --> 00:45:34,440
Speaker 1: is not a Luddite. He's not opposed to VR. He's

802
00:45:34,480 --> 00:45:37,880
Speaker 1: expressed excitement for the possibilities of VR. But he is

803
00:45:37,920 --> 00:45:41,239
Speaker 1: just saying, let us, let us be cautious, let us

804
00:45:41,280 --> 00:45:44,720
Speaker 1: study what is happening as we procede. He says, quote,

805
00:45:44,960 --> 00:45:49,080
Speaker 1: there may be a risk of depersonalization, whereafter an extended

806
00:45:49,080 --> 00:45:52,520
Speaker 1: immersion in a virtual environment, your physical body may seem

807
00:45:52,560 --> 00:45:55,840
Speaker 1: unreal to you. Fully immersive experiences have a bigger and

808
00:45:55,880 --> 00:45:59,520
Speaker 1: more lasting impact on people's behavior. In psychology, we know

809
00:45:59,760 --> 00:46:02,160
Speaker 1: from a rubber hand illusion that our brains can be

810
00:46:02,200 --> 00:46:05,480
Speaker 1: fooled into thinking that an inanimate rubber hand is our own.

811
00:46:05,920 --> 00:46:08,880
Speaker 1: In v our environments, we can be fooled into thinking

812
00:46:08,880 --> 00:46:12,879
Speaker 1: that we are our avatars. Consumers must understand that not

813
00:46:13,040 --> 00:46:15,759
Speaker 1: all of the risks are known in advance. There may

814
00:46:15,800 --> 00:46:18,600
Speaker 1: be a tiny percentage of the population that has a

815
00:46:18,640 --> 00:46:23,440
Speaker 1: certain psychiatric vulnerability, such that binging on VR may result

816
00:46:23,640 --> 00:46:28,720
Speaker 1: in a prolonged psychotic episode. One can only speculate. Yet again,

817
00:46:28,760 --> 00:46:31,320
Speaker 1: I think that is an idea worth taking very seriously.

818
00:46:31,360 --> 00:46:35,319
Speaker 1: Now you can cite the examples, uh, the anecdotes of

819
00:46:35,560 --> 00:46:37,839
Speaker 1: you know, I and my friends. We we play these

820
00:46:37,920 --> 00:46:40,040
Speaker 1: video games. We play violent games, so we would never

821
00:46:40,040 --> 00:46:42,240
Speaker 1: heard a fly. We're you know, we're very nice people,

822
00:46:42,640 --> 00:46:46,440
Speaker 1: but you are. They're taking a small sample. When you

823
00:46:46,480 --> 00:46:51,120
Speaker 1: apply these stimuli to vast populations, it's possible that some

824
00:46:51,320 --> 00:46:55,360
Speaker 1: subset of the population could have very strong responses to them.

825
00:46:55,400 --> 00:46:58,600
Speaker 1: I mean, certainly we see this with responses to other

826
00:46:58,680 --> 00:47:00,640
Speaker 1: forms of media. Yeah, I mean we know that some

827
00:47:00,680 --> 00:47:04,000
Speaker 1: people were more vulnerable to queuing than others, and are

828
00:47:04,040 --> 00:47:09,520
Speaker 1: more susceptible to influences from from fiction, from movies, from music, etcetera.

829
00:47:09,640 --> 00:47:12,120
Speaker 1: So I think it's interesting that he invokes the idea

830
00:47:12,120 --> 00:47:16,000
Speaker 1: of the rubber hand illusion. If you've never seen this research,

831
00:47:16,239 --> 00:47:18,120
Speaker 1: you should look up some of these videos on YouTube

832
00:47:18,200 --> 00:47:21,920
Speaker 1: or even try it yourself where you can. You can

833
00:47:22,120 --> 00:47:25,520
Speaker 1: put two hands on a table and one of them

834
00:47:25,680 --> 00:47:27,560
Speaker 1: is your real hand, in the other hand is a

835
00:47:27,560 --> 00:47:31,880
Speaker 1: fake hand that's not actually yours, and somebody like maybe

836
00:47:31,920 --> 00:47:34,879
Speaker 1: like strokes both hands or something long enough to give

837
00:47:34,920 --> 00:47:38,040
Speaker 1: you to get you to start imagining that the fake

838
00:47:38,120 --> 00:47:40,920
Speaker 1: hand is also your real hand. Then if you hit

839
00:47:40,960 --> 00:47:43,399
Speaker 1: that fake hand with a hammer, people will freak out.

840
00:47:44,000 --> 00:47:47,200
Speaker 1: They for a second they think it's their actual hand. Yeah.

841
00:47:47,600 --> 00:47:49,719
Speaker 1: And this is another case where I'd love to hear

842
00:47:49,800 --> 00:47:53,480
Speaker 1: from listeners who have more experience with with VR video games,

843
00:47:53,480 --> 00:47:55,640
Speaker 1: for instance, than we do. UH. For instance, I know

844
00:47:55,680 --> 00:47:58,400
Speaker 1: we're both fans of the The Alien Isolation game that

845
00:47:58,440 --> 00:48:01,080
Speaker 1: came out a few years back. It's my understanding that

846
00:48:01,200 --> 00:48:04,480
Speaker 1: one can play that in a virtual environment, which sounds

847
00:48:04,480 --> 00:48:07,680
Speaker 1: absolutely terrifying because when I played that game, I felt

848
00:48:07,680 --> 00:48:11,520
Speaker 1: like I was I was actually hiding in uh in

849
00:48:11,560 --> 00:48:14,600
Speaker 1: a locker, waiting for the xenomorph to pass. I can't

850
00:48:14,600 --> 00:48:19,680
Speaker 1: imagine playing it in a more personal virtual environment. That's

851
00:48:19,680 --> 00:48:22,200
Speaker 1: an interesting game because, as we talk about proteus effects

852
00:48:22,239 --> 00:48:25,680
Speaker 1: in the way they change our brains, lots of first

853
00:48:25,680 --> 00:48:28,600
Speaker 1: person games, as we were talking about earlier, are very

854
00:48:28,840 --> 00:48:31,160
Speaker 1: The character has a lot of agency and commits a

855
00:48:31,160 --> 00:48:34,080
Speaker 1: lot of violence. Maybe and it's very uh, I don't know,

856
00:48:34,160 --> 00:48:37,280
Speaker 1: powerful and dominant. When you're you're in doom or something

857
00:48:37,320 --> 00:48:39,120
Speaker 1: and you become a gun and you're just killing all

858
00:48:39,120 --> 00:48:42,920
Speaker 1: these monsters in this Alien game and some other recent

859
00:48:43,000 --> 00:48:46,360
Speaker 1: generation of horror games. You're very powerless. You have nothing

860
00:48:46,440 --> 00:48:48,880
Speaker 1: you can really do to beat the monster. It's a

861
00:48:49,040 --> 00:48:52,040
Speaker 1: it's a it's about hiding, and it's about cleverness and

862
00:48:52,120 --> 00:48:56,359
Speaker 1: powerlessness and how to to sneak away and survive. And

863
00:48:56,440 --> 00:48:58,680
Speaker 1: it's a very different type of experience than a lot

864
00:48:58,719 --> 00:49:01,160
Speaker 1: of other games of this generation. Yeah, and it really

865
00:49:01,239 --> 00:49:04,200
Speaker 1: more more fitting with the human condition. Right. We don't

866
00:49:04,239 --> 00:49:08,360
Speaker 1: succeed in life by being just unstoppable killing machines. We

867
00:49:08,360 --> 00:49:10,479
Speaker 1: we do it by by hiding in lockers and under

868
00:49:10,480 --> 00:49:15,520
Speaker 1: tables and waiting till the danger passes and holding your breath.

869
00:49:15,640 --> 00:49:18,319
Speaker 1: That's right, you gotta hold your breath. It's always important. Now.

870
00:49:18,360 --> 00:49:19,759
Speaker 1: I guess one thing we could say here is that

871
00:49:19,800 --> 00:49:22,120
Speaker 1: we've sort of strayed a little bit from the core

872
00:49:22,239 --> 00:49:24,400
Speaker 1: of the Proteus effects, because we've gone on to just

873
00:49:24,480 --> 00:49:27,560
Speaker 1: talk about how the whole game mechanics, you know, everything

874
00:49:27,600 --> 00:49:30,160
Speaker 1: about a video game can change the way we think

875
00:49:30,239 --> 00:49:33,080
Speaker 1: the things you have to do in it, the you know,

876
00:49:33,160 --> 00:49:36,520
Speaker 1: the type of visual experience it is. But to bring

877
00:49:36,520 --> 00:49:39,640
Speaker 1: it back to the idea of the avatar itself, not

878
00:49:39,760 --> 00:49:42,680
Speaker 1: what the game is, but the the appearance and the

879
00:49:43,040 --> 00:49:46,239
Speaker 1: and the attributes of the character you play as, and

880
00:49:46,360 --> 00:49:49,440
Speaker 1: how that can shape your mind. I am brought to

881
00:49:49,480 --> 00:49:52,480
Speaker 1: a question that goes outside of virtual environments, or maybe

882
00:49:52,560 --> 00:49:55,080
Speaker 1: goes actually to get back to the very place we started,

883
00:49:55,400 --> 00:49:58,600
Speaker 1: the analogy between virtual environments and the only thing like

884
00:49:58,760 --> 00:50:04,080
Speaker 1: them in in prehistory being being the imagination. Robert, I'm

885
00:50:04,080 --> 00:50:08,879
Speaker 1: curious if in your Dungeons and Dragons experiences you've ever

886
00:50:08,920 --> 00:50:12,440
Speaker 1: seen anything like the proteus effect, Like do the characters

887
00:50:12,520 --> 00:50:16,400
Speaker 1: people create for a D and D session change the

888
00:50:16,440 --> 00:50:20,359
Speaker 1: way the players themselves behave once even once they leave

889
00:50:20,440 --> 00:50:24,279
Speaker 1: the game, even when not explicitly role playing, Like does

890
00:50:24,320 --> 00:50:28,480
Speaker 1: a person playing a lawful good paladin take a break

891
00:50:28,520 --> 00:50:32,479
Speaker 1: to order pizza differently from that same player if they're

892
00:50:32,480 --> 00:50:37,480
Speaker 1: currently running some chaotic evil beasts that eats people. That's

893
00:50:37,480 --> 00:50:40,680
Speaker 1: a great question, um, I have to say I will.

894
00:50:40,719 --> 00:50:43,480
Speaker 1: First of all, there are different types of players, and

895
00:50:43,560 --> 00:50:46,000
Speaker 1: some get into the role playing aspect of it more

896
00:50:46,040 --> 00:50:50,760
Speaker 1: than others. The people I play with, none of them,

897
00:50:50,880 --> 00:50:53,759
Speaker 1: none of them are using a chaotic evil character, or

898
00:50:54,320 --> 00:50:58,759
Speaker 1: like every everybody's character seems to be a partial extension

899
00:50:58,760 --> 00:51:02,400
Speaker 1: of their own personality, but maybe they're leaning into certain

900
00:51:02,440 --> 00:51:06,239
Speaker 1: things more than others. Like one player, it was more

901
00:51:06,680 --> 00:51:09,680
Speaker 1: was very argumentative as his character, but he's also a

902
00:51:09,680 --> 00:51:12,840
Speaker 1: little bit argumentative in life, right, but maybe he was

903
00:51:12,840 --> 00:51:15,439
Speaker 1: a little more argumentative when when he was playing his character.

904
00:51:15,480 --> 00:51:19,160
Speaker 1: Another plays a character that is a that is kind

905
00:51:19,160 --> 00:51:22,000
Speaker 1: of gregarious, and I could see sometimes I see him

906
00:51:22,040 --> 00:51:25,120
Speaker 1: behaving in a gregarious way that seems like an extension

907
00:51:25,160 --> 00:51:27,279
Speaker 1: of his character. But it's kind of a chicken and

908
00:51:27,320 --> 00:51:30,560
Speaker 1: egg scenario. They're right, you know, are they They're not

909
00:51:30,680 --> 00:51:34,360
Speaker 1: necessarily acting out in a way that is different from themselves.

910
00:51:34,440 --> 00:51:38,120
Speaker 1: They're just sort of leaning into this, uh, this this

911
00:51:38,280 --> 00:51:40,800
Speaker 1: version of who they already are. Well, another way to

912
00:51:40,880 --> 00:51:44,240
Speaker 1: think about that is that they could actually be using

913
00:51:44,440 --> 00:51:46,840
Speaker 1: some version of the proteus effect. A little bit different

914
00:51:46,880 --> 00:51:49,000
Speaker 1: because it's not in virtual environments, but let's let's go

915
00:51:49,040 --> 00:51:52,479
Speaker 1: back to a virtual environment. I think people could use

916
00:51:52,640 --> 00:51:58,080
Speaker 1: some version of the proteus effect to essentially intentionally edit

917
00:51:58,160 --> 00:52:01,279
Speaker 1: to their own personality. You know, it's kind of hard

918
00:52:01,320 --> 00:52:03,680
Speaker 1: to change who you are, but I would say that

919
00:52:03,760 --> 00:52:07,680
Speaker 1: the most sure fire way to make changes to yourself

920
00:52:07,960 --> 00:52:11,520
Speaker 1: is not through thinking about them, but through doing things

921
00:52:11,680 --> 00:52:13,920
Speaker 1: right if you want to change who you are, change

922
00:52:13,920 --> 00:52:17,640
Speaker 1: your behavior first, and your nature will follow. And and

923
00:52:17,640 --> 00:52:19,360
Speaker 1: to that point, I have to say that the people

924
00:52:19,400 --> 00:52:21,719
Speaker 1: that I've played with, they tend to they tend to

925
00:52:21,800 --> 00:52:24,840
Speaker 1: want to be noble. They want to they want to

926
00:52:24,840 --> 00:52:28,160
Speaker 1: be the heroes of the story and and save the day,

927
00:52:28,239 --> 00:52:29,840
Speaker 1: which is great because that's the kind of game I

928
00:52:29,880 --> 00:52:33,399
Speaker 1: want to play. Uh And in d M, I don't

929
00:52:33,440 --> 00:52:36,160
Speaker 1: really want to d M a game where everyone is

930
00:52:36,200 --> 00:52:39,480
Speaker 1: a is a marauding jerk quad, right and they're just

931
00:52:39,840 --> 00:52:42,759
Speaker 1: tearing apart towns, because then that does begin to feel

932
00:52:42,800 --> 00:52:45,760
Speaker 1: a little icky, I would think. But but then again,

933
00:52:46,120 --> 00:52:47,799
Speaker 1: I would love to hear from anyone out there who's

934
00:52:47,800 --> 00:52:49,520
Speaker 1: been in a game like that. Have you have you

935
00:52:49,600 --> 00:52:54,120
Speaker 1: been in a chaotic evil essentially? Like like maybe there's

936
00:52:54,200 --> 00:52:57,480
Speaker 1: a there's a Blood Meridian role playing montule out there

937
00:52:58,080 --> 00:53:00,480
Speaker 1: that people are really crazy about and you can tell

938
00:53:00,480 --> 00:53:02,840
Speaker 1: me about it that I for one would not want

939
00:53:02,880 --> 00:53:06,600
Speaker 1: to run or participate in in the Blood Cormick McCarthy

940
00:53:06,640 --> 00:53:09,920
Speaker 1: Blood Meridian Dungeons and Dragons kind of campaign. And then

941
00:53:10,000 --> 00:53:14,000
Speaker 1: everybody just fights over whether they get to be Judge Holden. Yeah, Well,

942
00:53:14,040 --> 00:53:16,440
Speaker 1: I mean I would hope Judge Holden is an MPC.

943
00:53:16,600 --> 00:53:18,480
Speaker 1: But yeah, well, but that's an idea, Like you just

944
00:53:18,520 --> 00:53:23,560
Speaker 1: have a party of Judge Holden's rolling around horrible, Why

945
00:53:23,560 --> 00:53:26,160
Speaker 1: would that be even fun? Don't know, I don't know,

946
00:53:26,200 --> 00:53:28,840
Speaker 1: But okay, So I was talking about the idea of

947
00:53:28,960 --> 00:53:32,000
Speaker 1: editing the self. Now you can imagine to whatever extent

948
00:53:32,040 --> 00:53:35,080
Speaker 1: the proteus effect is real, and that you could exploit

949
00:53:35,120 --> 00:53:40,120
Speaker 1: it to intentionally edit your own personality in a direction

950
00:53:40,160 --> 00:53:43,000
Speaker 1: of your choosing. Right, So you could say, like, what

951
00:53:43,080 --> 00:53:47,080
Speaker 1: if I want to be a character more like X,

952
00:53:47,320 --> 00:53:51,520
Speaker 1: you could intentionally seek out virtual environments where you have

953
00:53:51,680 --> 00:53:56,080
Speaker 1: to play as a character who has those attributes you're seeking. Essentially,

954
00:53:56,120 --> 00:53:58,879
Speaker 1: you'd be virtually faking it till you make it. You'd

955
00:53:58,960 --> 00:54:03,399
Speaker 1: be enacting the behavior to shape yourself in the real

956
00:54:03,480 --> 00:54:07,319
Speaker 1: world as a byproduct. Interesting. Yeah, again we get back

957
00:54:07,360 --> 00:54:09,359
Speaker 1: to the idea of VR therapy. But you know, to

958
00:54:09,400 --> 00:54:12,719
Speaker 1: allude to another episode we've done before, do you think

959
00:54:12,719 --> 00:54:16,320
Speaker 1: there might be a proteus effect in place with the

960
00:54:16,760 --> 00:54:19,840
Speaker 1: game of Werewolf for Mafia? Oh, I wonder is it

961
00:54:20,360 --> 00:54:23,680
Speaker 1: does that? Displaying that game again, we're getting a little

962
00:54:23,680 --> 00:54:25,399
Speaker 1: bit off of the core of the proteus effect. Having

963
00:54:25,440 --> 00:54:27,560
Speaker 1: to do with avatars and getting more into like game

964
00:54:27,600 --> 00:54:33,440
Speaker 1: mechanics and behavior. But yeah, that does it train you

965
00:54:33,480 --> 00:54:35,480
Speaker 1: to be a liar? Like if you play a werewolf

966
00:54:35,520 --> 00:54:38,040
Speaker 1: a lot, does it make you a less honest person? Yeah?

967
00:54:38,160 --> 00:54:42,040
Speaker 1: Or just a paranoid and judgmental person. Oh yeah, I

968
00:54:42,040 --> 00:54:44,799
Speaker 1: want to offer one more weird take. See what you

969
00:54:44,800 --> 00:54:46,879
Speaker 1: think about this. Maybe this is a terrible take all right,

970
00:54:47,480 --> 00:54:50,080
Speaker 1: though I also think I can't be the first person

971
00:54:50,120 --> 00:54:52,040
Speaker 1: to suggest this, so I'm sure other people have written

972
00:54:52,080 --> 00:54:55,719
Speaker 1: about this. Social media, we've been talking about m m

973
00:54:55,800 --> 00:54:59,719
Speaker 1: O RPGs, massive multiple multiplayer online RPGs. I would say

974
00:54:59,760 --> 00:55:04,040
Speaker 1: so shoal media today is an m m O RPG.

975
00:55:05,160 --> 00:55:08,319
Speaker 1: Not It's not just like one. It literally is one.

976
00:55:08,440 --> 00:55:13,480
Speaker 1: It is a massive multiplayer online role playing game. If

977
00:55:13,480 --> 00:55:17,080
Speaker 1: you just take Twitter for example, It's a massive online

978
00:55:17,200 --> 00:55:21,000
Speaker 1: environment in which you create a character, and that character

979
00:55:21,120 --> 00:55:24,759
Speaker 1: is based on you, but isn't actually you. It is

980
00:55:24,800 --> 00:55:29,480
Speaker 1: a representation of you, composed of little segments of information

981
00:55:29,520 --> 00:55:32,239
Speaker 1: and behavior that you choose to add to that profile

982
00:55:32,360 --> 00:55:36,239
Speaker 1: of that version of you. It's character you create, interacting

983
00:55:36,239 --> 00:55:39,720
Speaker 1: with millions more who are doing the same thing, playing

984
00:55:39,880 --> 00:55:43,239
Speaker 1: roles of a character. They've created. And some players are

985
00:55:43,280 --> 00:55:45,480
Speaker 1: casual and they don't play very much, and they don't

986
00:55:45,520 --> 00:55:48,160
Speaker 1: play the role very consistently. They just pop in and out.

987
00:55:48,560 --> 00:55:51,800
Speaker 1: Others are power players and kind of addicts of the game.

988
00:55:51,960 --> 00:55:55,440
Speaker 1: They play it all the time. Sometimes these players form

989
00:55:55,600 --> 00:55:58,960
Speaker 1: loose teams and go out and fight oppositely aligned enemy

990
00:55:59,040 --> 00:56:02,959
Speaker 1: players in the very ruel space. I think Twitter really

991
00:56:03,000 --> 00:56:04,920
Speaker 1: does work in a lot of ways, kind of like

992
00:56:05,000 --> 00:56:07,760
Speaker 1: one of these games like World of Warcraft or something,

993
00:56:08,000 --> 00:56:11,400
Speaker 1: except the character creation is just less constrained by the

994
00:56:11,480 --> 00:56:15,040
Speaker 1: fantasy environment of the game. Now that's a good point.

995
00:56:15,080 --> 00:56:16,600
Speaker 1: That's a good point. I feel like we could, really

996
00:56:16,640 --> 00:56:20,040
Speaker 1: we could go wild with that concept, discussing how social

997
00:56:20,040 --> 00:56:22,640
Speaker 1: media changes who we are. Yeah, but I mean, I

998
00:56:22,680 --> 00:56:25,239
Speaker 1: think on this model you have to wonder about the

999
00:56:25,280 --> 00:56:29,000
Speaker 1: feedback loop of how the character you create on social

1000
00:56:29,000 --> 00:56:32,359
Speaker 1: media feeds back into who you actually are, and how

1001
00:56:32,440 --> 00:56:35,960
Speaker 1: that changes the way you play your character online. It

1002
00:56:36,040 --> 00:56:38,960
Speaker 1: creates some kind of self sustaining feedback loop. But in

1003
00:56:39,040 --> 00:56:42,040
Speaker 1: what what drives that loop and in what direction does

1004
00:56:42,080 --> 00:56:45,520
Speaker 1: it go. Here's one more scary thought. So in all

1005
00:56:45,560 --> 00:56:48,080
Speaker 1: of this, we invoke the mythic proteus and seemingly you know,

1006
00:56:48,080 --> 00:56:50,320
Speaker 1: it's just meant to refer to the idea of changeing forms.

1007
00:56:51,200 --> 00:56:53,680
Speaker 1: And I don't think there's actually more to it than that.

1008
00:56:53,760 --> 00:56:55,880
Speaker 1: But if we're to have fun with the concept, let's

1009
00:56:55,920 --> 00:56:59,680
Speaker 1: not forget that. Proteus also had that gift of unerring.

1010
00:57:00,800 --> 00:57:04,880
Speaker 1: No uh so, not normally would he prophesies the future.

1011
00:57:04,920 --> 00:57:09,440
Speaker 1: But his his visions were absolutely they were, they were unquestionable,

1012
00:57:10,000 --> 00:57:12,759
Speaker 1: so he forced to. He can tell you who you are,

1013
00:57:12,960 --> 00:57:15,920
Speaker 1: who you will be, what you will do. And I

1014
00:57:15,960 --> 00:57:18,600
Speaker 1: wonder if the danger, or perhaps the promise in some

1015
00:57:18,680 --> 00:57:21,520
Speaker 1: cases here of the produce effect isn't that it will

1016
00:57:21,560 --> 00:57:24,160
Speaker 1: make you someone that you are not, but it will

1017
00:57:24,240 --> 00:57:28,520
Speaker 1: let you become who you really are. Well, it makes

1018
00:57:28,560 --> 00:57:31,360
Speaker 1: me ask the question, who are we? But what we are?

1019
00:57:32,400 --> 00:57:35,040
Speaker 1: What more could we do? Being what we are? You are,

1020
00:57:35,080 --> 00:57:39,040
Speaker 1: what you do, even if it's online, Just do it all? Right.

1021
00:57:39,320 --> 00:57:41,960
Speaker 1: On On that note, we want to remind you check

1022
00:57:41,960 --> 00:57:43,600
Speaker 1: out Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That's we

1023
00:57:43,600 --> 00:57:46,120
Speaker 1: will find all the episodes of the podcast. You'll also

1024
00:57:46,200 --> 00:57:48,520
Speaker 1: find links out to our various social media accounts such

1025
00:57:48,520 --> 00:57:52,560
Speaker 1: as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. And big thanks as always

1026
00:57:52,600 --> 00:57:55,720
Speaker 1: to our excellent audio producers Alex Williams and Tarry Harrison.

1027
00:57:55,880 --> 00:57:57,640
Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with us,

1028
00:57:57,680 --> 00:57:59,840
Speaker 1: the host of this show, to let us know a

1029
00:58:00,000 --> 00:58:01,800
Speaker 1: topic you'd like us to cover in the future, or

1030
00:58:01,880 --> 00:58:03,880
Speaker 1: do you give us feedback on this episode or any other,

1031
00:58:04,280 --> 00:58:06,240
Speaker 1: or just to share some thoughts with us or say hi,

1032
00:58:06,360 --> 00:58:09,120
Speaker 1: You can email us at blow the Mind at how

1033
00:58:09,160 --> 00:58:21,440
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands

1034
00:58:21,480 --> 00:58:46,640
Speaker 1: of other topics. Does it how stuff works dot com