Corporeal Body in VR

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    316 ETHOS

    becoming that embodiment VR may also transfiguration of the body boundaries, such that the person sitting at the computerterminal can map or sense of corporeality directly onto r>"T',T""_forms. Currently, represented virtual forms exist on anumber of different levels: a disembodied virtual hand, full body repre-sentations, lobster, or animal and figures.Therefore, it is necessary to understand how both sensorial and morphological issues are implicated in embodiment in VR In order to achievethis, reconceptuaHzation human experience is needed that providesan understanding how embodiment in is constituted (and may begrounded in culture, race, and gender) as well as an exposition of the malleability of body boundaries. I t is argued that phenomenologicalapproach is well suited to these aims.Within this paper we present a brief historical development of VRThis includes a consideration of predominant optical nature. Thedisembodied discourses of VR are presented and countered by a consideration of the sensorial, gendered, and cultural embodiment that groundsVR Following an exposition the sensorial phenomenology of the body in physical and virtual environments is presented. Thisincludes a discussion of how sensory experience links into artificial representations the (anthropomorphic representations) other artificial forms (polymorphic representations) in VR This implicates theimportance of artificial representations in engendering a sense of virtualembodiment. What at here how is it possible relinquish asense of being in the physical environment and replace this with a senseof sensorial and corporeal embodiment in artifiCial environments?terms of corporeal embodiment in VR, this draws on researchregarding disrupted bodies (bodies whose sensations, functions, and morphology have been transformed through limb loss, prosthesis use, and pa-see Murphy 1987; Trieschmann to inform extent towhich the corporeal boundaries of the body are malleable and can extendinto virtual reality. These are also used to provide forexperiences embodiment current generic VR in ofthe phantom and objectified body. Understanding how people come toexperience real reconfigurations of their bodies gives us indications of thein our embodied experiences VR are manifested.

    omLOPMENT OF VIRTUAL REALITYVirtual reality denotes the use of three-dimensional computer graphics to generate artificial environments afford real-time interaction and exploration. These are intended to give the user animpression of being present or immersed in computer-generated world.

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    The Corporeal Body in Virtual Reality. 317

    While virtual environments can presented on desktop computerplays, a sense of immersion is often promoted through the use of headmounted (HMDs). can present stereo images (infrequently) sound, combined with haptic and vestibular displays, to create aperceptually encompassing computer environment.

    The HMD has been in use for over 40 years, initially for telepresenceto remote real environments (via cameras), later developed by Sutherland(1965) to view computer-generated imagery. For example, i t is now possible to navigate around Virtual environment such a computer-generated cityscape (see in which people can cycle on an exercisebike wearing HMDs depicting textually based images of Amsterdam.Tracking monitor movement of a head, so as heor she physically turns, so does the point of view in the virtual environ-ment. Most VR applications are dominated by which are,primarily visual mediums. Very few systems have progressed beyond this,although peripherals exist through which touch via datagloves,tion via treadmills, and vestibular information via motion platforms canbe (see Biocca Delaney 1995).

    Alongside increasing technological sophistication, the ways in whicha user's body is represented has evolved from lack pictorialresentation, to arrow (as hand), to the hand, and finally to full-bodyrepresentations, normally in the form of block figures. So, the history ofVR been to eyes and then the hand, while the rest ofbody's sensorium and motorium has been neglected or considered periph-eral the immediate aims VR

    OF OPTICAL TECHNOLOGIES, VIRTUAL REAliTY, AND EMBODIMENTThe reliance on visual information in the presentation of virtualworlds is not surprising, given that vision has long been asfinest of senses (seeing believing). Indeed, it has been argued thatinsights acquired by science have been built upon knowledge provided byoptical technologies, such the telescope microscope (Ihde 1990),

    reinforcing the view that the acquisition of knowledge is primarily a visualenterprise. In VR can seen as a continuation of the WesternSCientific tradition. It is these elements that contribute to the dominanceof visual sense in

    It is a more recent recognition that vision by itself is incomplete. Jonas(1970) highlights and touch as two senses that eomplement andsight achieve its full potential. In terms of VR, the complementarity ofvarious senses has prompted the development of peripherals to captureproject body in its complexity into terminal reality (Bukatman1993). Therefore, VR does not need to remain characterized by a disembodied

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    gaze-that projection our into optic panorama. Flexiblesensors and exoskeletal devices (re)create the body (or its parts, such asthe hand) virtual environments. fiber-optic " ... , . AV 'Ufamiliar dataglove, adapted a fully instrumentedanimation of a virtual body viewable via a HMD (Ellis 1995).this sense, development reality (VR) continues toevolve to greater of psychological, and immer-sion. By virtue of the fiber-optic flexion sensors of the familiar datagloveand fully instrumented body it is possible reach beyond thelimitations VISIon. "compelling" VR experience created bying" sensory impressions from physical reality (Biocca and Levy 1995).The eyes, possibly ears, and even the body, envelopedby peripherals. Reminiscent of procedurcs associated sensorydeprivation, i t is, in fact, a substitution of sensory information. From thedataglove to body suit, technologies becoming all-embodying,perhaps even re-embodying. They are what Balsamo (1995:215;see also Murray 1996) calls "new technologies of corporeality."

    DIS-EMBODIMENT OR EMBODIMENTiidiscourses around virtual treat as a disembodyingmedium. Such discourses talk of leaving the body behind at the computerterminal, of a wandering mind cyberspace. body, thestory goes, remains docked, immobile at interface, the mindwanders the pixelled delights of the computer programmers' creation.(1996), for example, contends that, recognizing transpar-

    ency of the virtual system feature which will be elaborated on withinthis paper), the "operator too" disappears, giving way to the disembodiedtraveler, the astral projectionist, cowboy" in nur,ar_(1996:37).Narratives of mindlbody splits abound in VR discourse. Penny (1993)argues that "virtual reality the Cartesian duality,experiential body with a body image [the virtual body], a creation of mind

    . . ." (1993:20). Stone (1992) cautions us to avoid the "Cartesian trick"because, argues, physicality is important in as ineveryday environments. "No refigured virtual body, she warns, "no matter how beautiful, will slow the death of a cyberpunk with AIDS. Even inthe of technosocial subject, is lived t h T ~ h bodies" (1992:113,emphasis added). Indeed, the body deserves recognition for its primacy inthe VR encounter (see Hayles 1996). Our argument in this paper is in linewith Stone's, that experience of using is an experience.However, this is not unproblematic, and the nature of embodiment needsto be understood.

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    The Corporeal Body In Virtual Reality. 319

    The new technologies that constitute VR create the possibility of bodily immersion. As suggested earlier, there are comparisons here with studies of embodiment under sensory deprivation (Seymour Fisher 1973).Fisher gives the example of a sensory deprivation study carried out by thepsychiatrist John C. Lilly, who submerged himself in a tank of water, thetemperature of which matched his body. As he floated in the tank, isolatedfrom all light and sound, Lilly began to feel "merged and indistinguishable.from all that surrounded him," unable to "distinguish where his body leftoff and the water began . . ." (1973:22). With no sensory detail (includingdiminished proprioceptive and kinaesthetic frames of reference), Lilly'sbody boundaries became ambiguous. Even the temperature of his body nolonger "framed" his body against the surrounding environmental temperature. While we are not arguing that immersion in VR constitutes sensorydeprivation, we are arguing that the condition in VR is a (partial) substitution of sensory information, and that deprivation of physical reality, asarticulated by Biocca and Levy (1995), is an integral part of a "compelling"VR experience.The procedures associated with sensory deprivation and virtual immersion may function to destabilize the experiential boundaries of a person's body (see Riva 1998), thus partially freeing the phenomenal bodyfrom the experiential constraints of a person's physical presence in thereal world.1 For example, Michael Heim (1995) describes his own perceptual nausea following his VR immersion as "an acute form of body amnesia" (1995:67). Heim entreats us to observe someone emerging from a VRsystem: "Watch their first hand movements. Invariably, the user stands inplace a few moments . . . , takes in the surroundings, and then pats torsoand buttocks with their hands-as if to secure a firm landing and returnpresence in the primary body" (1995:68).2 All this is not to say that themind is freed from the body, but that the experience ofVR brings its e m ~ bodiment with it. It does this through sensations that are linked almostinescapably to the virtual environment.Not only are bodies bounded within the sensations they receive, butthey are also located in time and space. Early human development includes a process of becoming embodied. We have a corporeai history, anevolutionary and ontological development. Along with our evolutionarycorporeal history, the "passage of bodily time" and its concomitant experiential activity molds our embodiment (Zaner 1981). Maus (1992) r e c o g ~ nized this when he argued that the body is our first and most naturaltechnical object. O ~ r clothes (think of how high heels shape "the gestaltof a walking body" [Falk 1995:96]) and techniques of the body work notonly upon the body-object, but also upon the body-lived, producing ourembodied experience.

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    ETHOS

    Moreover, our evolutionary includes the development anupright posture. We encounter the world from the height at which our eyesare located in our bodies. By drawing on our evolutionary history, VR has.our embodied reality to map onto our embodied experiencescyberspace. As Dennis Proffitt explains, the "point of projection" in VR isstanding height. perspective offered viewers their expe-rience in the world, and viewers measure objects in the virtual environments as they in reality-that against their own bodies. "You turnyour head and see a stool in the corner, it appears below your line of vision,making it appear shorter than you are" (Azar 1996:1, 25).

    SENSORIAL, GENDERED, AND CULTURAL EMBODIMENTIN VIRmAl REALITYIt was suggested earlier that dominant discourses surrounding virtualreality are predicated on notion of a disembodied For example,one guru writes having "everything amputated" within VR (Barlow1990). Indeed, this mirrors the concerns of the social sciences, which have

    sought to human as disembodied phe-nomena. Here the body rarely informs. our understanding of cultural andsocial processes. However, movement cultural theory arguesstrongly that the corporeal body is an integral part of human experience1993; Scheper-Hughes Lock We cannot understand whowhat we are, or explicate lived experience, without reference to embodiment (Csordas 1990, 1994). This perspective has important implicationswe understand embodied experience of because that ex-perience is founded on our bodily senses, which transport us into virtual

    However, not just our bodies are transported, but also our history andour social and cultural context. In terms of VR, there is evidence thatpeople their everyday, real-world understandings and social experiences to new virtual encounters. For instance, a recent study (Murray,Bowers et , in press) of how people navigate through virtual cityscape,in which a computer allowed them to progress anywhere, found that theyremained obstacles such as ""U"-"'' 'I',oand trees. This indicates that people's experiences of VR are not purelycognitively oriented, but embodied. In real life, of one cannottravel through bUildings and other objects. It is possible in cyberspace, butstudy partiCipants took advantage of possibility. Thus, to walk

    roads in cyberspace is to remain within the same embodied sociocultural patterns that exist in the real world.is that experiencing Virtual reality is an embodied andcultural event. For instance, Csordas (1990, 1994) argues that the body is

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    the existential ground of culture and explicates this in his studies of religious experiences. We interpret our experiences through our culturallyconstituted body. The very fact that VR has developed in an occular-centric way might well be grounded in the fact that Western culture tends toemphasize vision above the other senses. As Howes and Classen (1991)have argued, other cultures do not always divide the sensorium in thesame ways as Western cultures do. They give the example of the differentsensory properties of blood. In North America the visual aspect of blood isparamount, whereas in South India the tactile dimension is emphasized,and in Japan it is the odor of the blood that takes precedence. Indeed,whereas the Western world works around a conception of five senses,themselves culturally constituted (see, for instance, Classen et a1. 1994),other cultures have the capacity to recognize as many as 17 senses (Rivlinand Gravelle 1984). The point we want to make here is thatifVRhad beendeveloped within a different cultural context, different aspects of our sensorial world might have been a more prominent feature of VR experience.Certainly, the artifacts of a culture (such as VR) embody the differentsensorial emphases of its people (Howes and Classen 1991). In this sense,experience of VR is culturally constituted.We can extend this argument further by considering the gendered andethnocentric nature ofVR applications. Feminist cultural critics have writ-ten about the ways in which the body of white, Western males are inscribed upon and within the technological apparatus and narratives ofvirtual environments (Balsamo 1993, 1995; Franck 1995; Hayles 1994,1996,1997; Stone 1992). We argue here thatVRis a cultural andgenderedspace, and because of this, the potential of the embodied sensory experience within it is prescribed by the confines of the predominantly white,Western, male world. I f VR worlds had developed outside of the white,Western male model, which is predominantly visually based, they mighthave been configured very differently. For instance, one VRdevelopmentthat reflects a feminist understanding of the body is that of Char Davies.Her Osmose system is a virtual reality organized around a breathingmechanism rather than hand-held peripherals. Moving within this environment (an oceanscape) involves using a variety of breathing techniques,and, as such, brings into playadifferent sensory experience (Davies 1995).Clearly, this VR application has very different implications for experiencesof embodiment, which are instantiated through the tactile-kinestheticbody (see Sheets-Johnstone 1988), rather than the purely visual one.Similarly, Bailey (1996) has written about the way in which racialissues are also embodied issues. In his article "Virtual Skin: ArticulatingRace in Cyberspace" he suggests that race matters in virtual experiences:

    The discourse of race is, by history and by deSign, rooted in the body. Cyber-subjectivity promises the fantasy of disembodied communication, but it remains firmly

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    The CorporealBody In VirtualReality. 325

    In Heidegger's (1962) analysis of tool use, he uses the example of ahammer to propose the idea that a tool can become the means rather thanthe object of experience. The tool itself is also surpassed as i t withdrawsinto the architecture of the body, forming what Ihde (1990) terms "anembodiment relation." The tool is not separate, but part of body experience.Similarly, Merleau-Ponty (1970) argues that the cane for the blindperson is no longer an object, but an extension of the realm of the senses.Indeed, Merleau-Ponty speaks of it as "an instrument with which he perceives. It is a bodily auxiliary, an extension of the bodily synthesis"(1970:152). With the cane as a "familiar instrument," touch is experienced at its end point ("its point has become an area of sensitivity" [Merleau-Ponty 1970:143], rather than at the hand. This incorporation of thetool into the body gestalt is what Leder (1990:34; see also Grosz 1994)refers to as a "phenomenological osmosis," Whereby "the body allows instruments to melt into it" (Kujundzic and Buschert 1994:207-208). In sofar as we take technologies into our experiencing by perceiving throughthem, the technology becomes embodied.6

    The above phenomenal examples of how the body incorporates toolsinto its structure have implications for how we experience peripheral devices ofVR technology. The separation between biological and cyber-bodies that Penny discusses appears invalid, providing that the virtualenvironments and virtual body incorporate these devices. If there is a purpose for having peripherals, such as the dataglove, within the narrative ofthe virtual environment itself, then it may be possible that the dataglovebecomes transparent in the same way that Heidegger's hammer and Merleau-Ponty's cane do.

    Alongside an understanding of the phenomenology of the peripheraldevices in VR, an understanding of the phenomenological experience ofvirtual embodiment requires the consideration of the perceptual effectthat VR has on the experience of the body. It has been argued that for asense of "presence" in virtual environments, the virtual body must closelyresemble (both Visually and sensorially) the body of the user (the anthropomorphic argument). Sheridan (1992) asks how the "geometric mappings" of the body within the virtual and physical environments, relativeto each other, contribute to a sense of presence. For identification, andtherefore telepresence to take place, it would seem that a Similarity in thevisual appearance of the person and the virtual body is required (Held andDurlach 1992). However, other discourses have discussed the polymorphous potentiality of VR (the polymorphic argument). This refers to thenotion that the represented body in VR does not have to closely map theperson's body in real life. In effect, i t is envisaged that people could experience a radically reconfigured body, say from their usual anthropoid

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    The Corporeal Body In Virtual Reality. 331

    I is important to recognize that culture and gender may influence theexperience of embodiment for prosthesis users. For instance, manywomen in Murray and Sixsmith's (1996) study indicated that their pros-theses were central to maintaining their feminine identity, such as beingable to continue wearing high heels, to go dancing and so forth. However,other women remarked on the "ugliness" of their prostheses, and how theyinterfered with the establishment of sexual relationships. In contrast,males in this study appeared more concerned with purely utilitarian func-tions provided by their prostheses, such as being able to continue drivinga car. Interestingly, prosthetic company advertisements often depict maleprosthesis users in cars, emphasizing the culturally valued link betweenmen and driving (Kurzman 1997). Thus, the cultural context of feminineattractiveness contrasts with masculine functionality, both of which playa part in a cultural and gendered embodiment of prostheses.Race may also be an integral issue in prosthetiC embodiment. Forexample, prosthetic cosmetic covers, which surround the working mecha-nisms of a prostheSiS, need to be visually redolent of the color of the user'sskin. While issues surrounding race do not currently appear in existingresearch material, there are commercial companies that speCialize in pro-viding these cosmetic covers, which therefore indicates that race is animportant consideration. Until issues of race have been explored with re-spect to prosthesis use, it is problematic to attempt to explicate its rolefurther here, aside from highlighting race as an important area of futureresearch.When considering issues of embodiment involving people with con-genital limb absence, the phenomenon of phantom limb is less pertinentthan the reconfiguration of the body through the wearing of a prosthesis.For people with congenital limb absence, prostheses are a redesign of thebody. Previous research involving people with congenital limb absence hasconcentrated on the rejection of the artificial limbs, noting that many ofthese participants felt their bodies felt complete without prosthetics(Frank 1984, 1986, 1988).In Murray and Sixsmith's (1996) research however, the embodimentof people with congenital limb absence who had continued to use prosthet-ics was of interest. Here i t was found that many of these participants re-ported similar phenomenological embodiments of prosthetics asamputees. For example, a female interviewee with congenital absence ofher right forearm stated: " . . . it's [the prosthesis] a part of me now, that'sthe only way I can describe it. To me it's as if, though I've notgot my lowerarm, it's as though I've got i t and it's a part of me now. It's as though I'vegot two hands, two arms" (Murray and Sixsmith 1996).As well as this direct assertion, amputees and people with congenitallimb absence provide rich descriptions of prosthesis use reminiscent of the

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    The Corporeal Body In Virtual Reality. 333

    the importance of "authorship of action" (Harre 1991), to be able to con-trol body, contributing an ownership identification of thewith the body.Instances of disrupted embodiment, and the body images they pro-Vide, of the importance of function, andupon the selfs corporeal moorings to the body. They tell us about a processof re-embodiment-a radical metamorphosis in the architecture of thebody. and people congenital absence usetheses experience "the extended body," while paralytics experience "thereceding body."

    direct relation VR, can be argued the changes sensoryinformation that come with amputation, the embodiment of prosthetics,and paralysis take time to crystallize into a concise body psyche, whereupon sense completeness allows reliable body image once more.Similarly, it might be that the dizzying sensory changes that accompanyVR likewise disorient our sense of body before, with explora-tion time, coherent body experienced.In the following section of this paper we will see how the key phenom-ena of limb experienced by the amputee) objectificationof the body experienced by paralytic) manifested inapplications. In addition, we will also readdress arguments for polymor-phic within VR

    AROURN TO PHENOMENOLOGICAL EMBODIMENTS IN VB: THEPHANTOM, OBJECTIFIED, POLYMORPHIC BODY

    word ka referred to "ethereal and dense"copy the human This but material analogue" ofsoul "inhabited and animated" the physical body (Grosz 1994:62-63).Such cultural myth echoes the in current systems.We consider that body inhabits an etherealone. For instance, Romanyshyn (1994) argues that i t is close to the phe-nomenology cyberspace see virtual or cyberbody"haunting" virtual world. cyberbody aits interactions with its virtual environment leave no tangible marks uponits flesh" (1994:97). Similarly, Hayles (1992) the act ofclosing the in VR grasp an objeet. While the person seesobject, often there is no kinesthetic feedback of touch. "Proprioceptivesense flows out of the body to meet artifact, but since there is noterial object, returns a feedback that acts to de-materializebody" (Hayles 1992:168).it be the physical body becomes more etherealtangible) in virtual experience perceptually and ""V'''"'''O''""n

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    3 3 4 . THOS

    the virtual body becomes more dense. Heim (1995) implies much thesame when he says that immersion results from the primarybody giving away priority to the cyberbody. . . . The user undergoes a highpowered interiorization of a virtual environment, but in the process losesself-awareness" A fictional example this is provided by theBritish television science-fiction comedy Red Dwarf. In one episode, Cat,one of the main characters, attempts to leave an "artificial reality console"taking the devices. After taking the glove boot,Cat's (virtual) body is rendered paralyzed along his left side, and this is hisdominant bodily perception.

    This a question phenomenal embodiment in systems: ourtechnological embodiment may vacillate between the two, but two thereare. This is what Simon Penny calls the "split body condition" or the "dou-body" (1994:242). VR, part of the sensorial architecture of bodyremains in the physical world, while another is projected into the virtualThe corporeal body the physical ever presentmind, while an body image weakly competes with

    it. When only parts of the body are absorbed by VR technology, phantomoccur. The to which visual corporeality nnTn,nembodied experience influences the tangibility of our bodyoutside the VR experience.As example of informative of atypical embodiment whenapplied VR, is to return to findings of Slater Usoh(1994). The range of movement offered by the virtual body in the studieswas limited. Following a (in which only one arm and torsomovements were represented), some participants commented theirvirtual body was "a dead weight," "a useless thing," and "nothing to dome" (Slater Usoh 1994: authors provide their anal-ogy of this phenomenon. They use an example of atypical embodiment,

    namely the loss of proprioception, to inform us about the participants'The example drawn a by enti-tled "The Disembodied Lady." The subject of the essay is a woman namedChristina, who has lost all sense of her muscle, tendon, and joint positions.her Christina couldn't "feel" body. feltbodied." Only by careful (Visual) observation of her movements couldChristina accomplish motor tasks. Without this close scrutiny her bodywas to would "lose" arms, for instance, comments, "I think they're one place, and I find they're another" (Sacks

    1985:46).However, responses the in Slater's Usoh'sstudies are remarkably similar to the comments made by people withparalysis of various parts of their bodies. In both cases an objectificationthe (or is articulated. The that Murphy

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    3 3 6 . ETHOS

    CONCLUSIONThroughout this paper, we have attempted to explore the notion of

    embodiment of body in virtual reality. have argued thata sense of embodiment in VR is predicated upon two phenomena: thesorial architecture of the body, and the malleability of body boundaries.The more is possible to enter whole sensorium in VR, the more ispossible to feel embodied within it. But equally important is the extent towhich people can blur their body boundaries and extend eorporeality into the virtual environment. This has implications for the futureconfigurations virtual reality systems. may be to designsystems to facilitate experiences of embodiment. This is particularly thecase when considering peripheral For example, virtualenvironments can be created and perceived using specialized input/outputdevices, a or instrumented clothing, such a dataglove.Such devices can be used to transform the phenomenal (e.g., visuo-tactile,kinesthetic) properties of body. Proprioception and phenomenalplasticity of body boundaries can thus be accommodated syntheticdia when the body topology becomes accessible. However, the extent towhich devices and/or (such as body-suit) may alter the sensorium of the body to redefine experiential human morphologyis an openAnother enigmatic aspect of embodimentin VR is whether a representation the body necessary virtual environments, and so,form it should take. Judging from the limited amount of research we havereviewed i t appears that visual representation of person'sis not always required to create a feeling of embodied presence. However,when visual representations are both anthropomorphic and polymorphic virtual bodies engender feelings of embodiment. This maylargely due to malleability of experiential body boundaries. Indeed,within this paper we have proposed that instances of atypical embodiment(what we refer to as "disrupted bodies") provide us with rich examples ofthe malleable image indieate reeonfigured hodies are experienced in VR systems.in has been explored, this paper, amatrix. The body has been understood as a cultural product, a genderedand ethnie entity. We argue that understanding of embodiment musttake into account this sociocultural context of embodiment. It is apparentthat the development of VR emerged white, male, Western,and scientific context. If this ethnocentric developmental context continues be then women and people other ethnic backgroundsmay feel alienated because their culturally constituted bodily experieneesare not reeognized in VR environments.

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    The Corporeal Body In VirtualReality. 337

    The phenomenological approach taken in this paper promotes adeeper understanding these issues enables a critical examination ofthe way in which the body may be instantiated within virtual reality. Weare thus allowed to challenge disembodied Cartesian accounts of the bodyat the while the is cyberspace. We haveducted an exploration of embodiment in VR from this phenomenologicalperspective. This appears to be a promising route to understanding people's own experiences embodiment VR systems, Phenomenologicalanalysis of experience is critical to an understanding of embodiment perse, and of embodiment in virtual reality in particular, It is through such aperspective considerations of sensorium,sentation, ethnicity, and gender have implications for future developmentof VR Therefore, we advocate phenomenological approach in future ex-aminations elaboration embodiment in virtual reality.

    CRAIG D. MURRAY is aLecturer in Psychology in the Department of Psychology, Liverpool Hope UniversityUnited Kingdom.JUDITH SIXSMITH Senior Lecturer in of Psychology and ManchesterMetropolitan University, United Kingdnm.

    NOTESAckrwwledgments. The authors like thank Frank her constructivetique of an earlier draft of this paper. Craig Murray would also like to thank Joanne Wynnefor her continual support, and to acknowledge the support of the European Communities'

    ESPRIT (European Strategic Programme for Research Development InformationTechnologies) eSCAPE: Electronic Landscapes.1. A case can be made for envisaging a dissolution between social and bodily space, or atleast for seeing that this distinction is ambiguous or problematic. Straus (1966) argues thatsocial space is expansion of the "body scheme." It belongs to body, but notpletely: "it is not an indisputable property, but a variable possession." This "interveningspace is a medium between me and the world," and that is its social significance (StrausIhde (1990) notes that we as our "real" or "naked space" istransformed optical such the microscope eyeglasses. VR apredominantly optical technology has the same and additional properties as those of tradi

    tionallens technologies; Along with the ability to move forever forward (magnify) and backward in relation to image, VR naked space transformed,particularly when we do not have a virtual body (re)presentation.2. The reassuring pats on the buttocks and torso that Heim observes in emerging VRusers reminiscent of behavior observed in schIzophrenics and psychotics whopress reason for caressing, or banging various parts the as a wish to"regain a clear picture of the dimensionality of their bodies, which had become vague or

    'deadened'" (Fisher 1973:23-24).3. all the sense organs," argues Anzieu, "[the is the most vital: one can livewithout sight, hearing, taste or smell, but it U " I " u ~ , : > 1 U j i ' " to survIve if the greater part of

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    338 . ETHOS

    one's skin is not intact. The skin . . . occupies a greater surface (. . . 18,000 [square centime-ters] in the adult) than any other sense organ" (1989:14). .4. Merleau-Ponty tells us that "my body for me is not an assemblage of organs juxtaposedin space. I am in undivided possession of it and know where each of my limbs is through abody image in which all are included" (1970:98). To illustrate the immediacy of the bodyimage extended in space ("a spatiality of situation"), he continues, "If I stand in front of mydesk and lean on it with both hands, only my hands are stressed and the whole of my body

    trails behind them like the tail of a comet. It is not that I am unaware of my shoulders orback, but these are simply swallowed up in the position of my hands, and my whole posturecan be read, so to speak, in the pressure they exert on the table" (Merleau-Ponty 1970:100).5. However, there Is also a sense whereby donning HMDs, gloves, and body suits becomesa ritual. In order to enter the virtual world, these devices must be worn, both literally andsymbolically. For example, consider a study by Slater et al. (1994) where a more intensesense of presence was induced by having participants simulate the process of entering thevirtual environment while already immersed in a virtual environment. This simulation included repetition of donning a virtual HMD to enter different virtual environments.6. This is not to say that we can't become aware of them. Perception takes place throughthe peripherals, but as a fringe phenoinenon we can become aware of. For instance, we feelthe light pressure of eyeglasses on the bridge of the nose, but the focal phenomenon isachieved by the perceptual transparency of the peripherals. This is what Ihde (1990) refersto as a "ratio" between the objectness of the technology and its transparency in use. At theextreme height of embodiment, background presence of the technology may be detected.However, this does not imply that a "dislocation" will inevitably be experienced between thecorporeal and the virtual body.7. The supporting role of the whole body in any perceptual activity is elaborated on byLeder (1990): "When I gaze at a landscape I dwell most fully in the eyes. Yet this is onlypossible because my back muscles hold my spine erect, my neck muscles adjust my headinto the proper position for viewing. . . . My whole body proVides the background that supports and enables the point of corporeal focus. As such, the body itseli is no t a point but anorganized field In which certain organs and abilities come to prominence while others recede."8. This can be compared with the experiences of prosthetic breast implants for somewomen. The contribution a phantom can make to the acceptance of prosthetic breast implants is evidenced by one women who, a year and a half alter her mastectomy, was stillexperiencing phantom breast sensations and immediately experienced the implants as beingher own breasts (Goin and Goin 1981:185).

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