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Virtual Reality Schizophrenia Simulation
DrunkenTerror writes "NPR is reporting this story about a virtual reality schizophrenia simulation developed by Janssen Pharmaceutica, a company that makes a drug for schizophrenia. The simulation (seen through a VR HMD) lets the user experience the world through the eyes and ears of a person with schizophrenic illness. The rig was designed as an education tool for doctors and others who want a more visceral understanding of the illness. The voices in the RealAudio slideshow are really overwhelming. Janssen is said to be considering converting the VR content to DVD for wider release. Helloooooo, future of trip-hop!"
But I'm afraid us sane people, being quite aware that the simulation is just a simulation, will still have no clue what it's really like to have scizophrenia. Schizophrenics can't distinguish between reality and their hallucinations. Their voices are not "in their heads", they come from the outside world, or so it seems to them. They see people who don't exist, hear voices booming from the sky, see messages appear in perfect clarity in thin air, and on and on...
The central issue of schizophrenia isn't any wacked out psychedelic VR trip. It's more like a constant daydream, except that it's utterly impossible to distinguish between the dream and the real world. The hallucinations are idiosyncratic, coming from the psyche and experience of the individual in question... Frankly, I don't see what kind of value this research has to schizophrenic patients.
My younger brother has schizophrenia, and for the longest time, my parents had no idea what he was going through. They didn't know he had to be brought in for treatment because they thought he was just being a "bad boy."
I think this is just another step in understanding mental illness.
Yes, it is a simulation. It was developed with the help of schizophrenia patients, who tested it and gave feedback to the developer. One of the patients
interviewed said it was realistic enough that he couldn't finish the simulation.
Again, I reiterate, the schizophrenics will be able to see that this is like schizophrenia because they have suffered from the disease, and they know what it is like. But there is no simulation that can even come close to showing non-schizophrenics what it is like. That is, the simulation may be quite realistic and disturbing to people who have schizophrenia, but that says nothing about how it affects people without schizophrenia, and how it demonstrates the illness to them.
To make the LSD analogy (which I shouldn't, but I will)... I might be able to show you a Winamp plug-in that looks very much like a visual hallucination that one might experience on acid. But that is completely and utterly different from knowing what it is like to be on acid. The only way to know is to have done it, just like the only way to know what schizphrenia is like is to have it. VR doesn't come any closer than a verbal description. The fact that we have people commenting on how "cool" the simulation is should give this fact away. Schizophrenics don't find it "cool," and many times find it to be wholly disturbing and unsettling.
Let me put it like this: Can I put you in a VR that will convince you that you are dreaming, a la the matrix? No. When you are awake, you know you aren't dreaming, and there is no sensory stimulation that can negate that. But it's just that kind of mechanism that we have to deal with to even talk about simulating schizophrenia. I stand by my original assertion. Considering most of the population still thinks that schizophrenics have multiple personalities, I don't see how the money spent on this VR project will help general awareness at all. This is a toy.