The Binding Problem in Presence Research
An article in Presence refers to the 'binding problem': how does the brain match up signals from different sources to create the 'reality' we see?
The abstract of the article, "The Binding Problem in presence research", by Harvey, Michael A. and Sanchez-Vives, Maria V ( Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments, Volume 14, Number 5, October 2005, pp. 616-621(6)) says:
"An important contributor to the feeling of being present is the unity of one's perceptual experience. That is, the constellation of sensorial cues in a virtual environment must be in accord with some basic rules which, in the real world, govern the relationship between sensory events. A similar and long standing problem in neuroscience is how is it that the temporally and spatially segregated activity in neuronal ensembles is reassembled in order to generate a seamless conscious experience. This issue, which was first addressed by the Gestalt psychologists, is commonly referred to as the binding problem. In this paper we will discuss how the problem of binding is related to the problem of presence, and how the study of the neurophysiological substrates subserving this process may lead to an understanding of contextual relationships critical to generating presence in virtual environments."
Alas the article costs $10 to read and I've got a better use for £6. There's a very short article in Wikipedia. Seems to me this is a major problem for simulators: how do you feed in information via different channels (hearing, sight, etc.) in such as way that it all fits together?
Try watching German TV dubbed in French, or vice versa, for a good example of what happens when the streams of information don't 'bind'. The lack of lip-synch stands out at once. Clearly the recipient brain has a set of expectations which you have to meet if you are to seem 'realistic'.
(So why do we apparently not mind when simulations don't have realistic odours?)
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Re: US TV dubbed into German: In addition to the lip-synch issue, I seem to recall that sometimes the same voice would be used for different people. And on Dallas, Bobby's voice never did ring true to me.
