“Total Immersion – blocking information coming to the brain from all five senses, intercepting signals going from the brain to the body and replacing these signals with “fake” ones – computer generated. Full Immersion was primarily used in the computer games industry, as it allowed the player to completely switch the consciousness of the player to the virtual game world."
Immersion is a state of consciousness, often artificial, in which the subject’s self-awareness of his physical state is reduced or lost completely. This mental state is often accompanied by a feeling of infinity of space, hyper-concentration, a distorted sense of time, and ease of action. The term is widely used to describe immersive virtual reality, installation art and video games, but it is unclear whether the word is used consistently. This term also refers to frequently used buzzwords, so its meaning is rather vague, but it carries a connotation of something exciting.
The feeling of immersion in virtual reality (VR) can be described as a complete presence within the suggested space of virtual objects, where everything related to this space necessarily presupposes its “reality”, and the subject seems completely disconnected from the external physical world.
According to Ernest Adams, a computer game developer and consultant, immersion can be divided into three main categories:
Tactical Dive:
Tactical immersion is felt when performing tactile operations that require dexterity. Players feel "on" when performing actions that lead to success.
Strategic Dive: https://bookmakersnotongamstop.co.uk/non-uk-betting-sites/
Strategic immersion is more intellectual, it is associated with solving mental problems. Chess players experience strategic immersion when choosing the right solution among a wide range of possibilities.
Narrative immersion occurs when the player becomes invested in the story, similar to what a person experiences when reading a book or watching a movie.
Immersion in virtual reality is a hypothetical technology of the future that exists now mostly as virtual reality in art projects. It consists of immersion in an artificial environment where the user feels exactly the same as in the ordinary reality of consensus.
Understanding the nervous system
It will require a comprehensive understanding of which nerve impulses correspond to which sensations and which motor impulses produce the desired muscle contractions. This will create the right user sensations and trigger the right actions in a virtual reality environment. The most promising research project at the moment is the Blue Brain Project, which has an idea to understand how the brain works by developing large-scale computer models.
A digital immersive environment is an artificial, interactive, computer-generated scene or “world” into which the user can immerse itself.
Interaction
When the senses have enough faith in the representation, and the digital environment becomes a reality, the user should be able to interact with the environment in a natural, intuitive way. The immersive environment can respond to user actions and movements, for example, there is a motion tracking system, computer vision, gesture control. Brain control interfaces respond to the user’s brain activity.
To interact with the virtual immersion environment you need an interface…
Example of control using a unidirectional neuro-computer interface
Neuro-computer interface (NCI) (also called direct neural interface, brain interface, brain-computer interface) is a system designed to exchange information between the brain and an electronic device (for example, a computer). In unidirectional interfaces, external devices can either receive signals from the brain or send signals to it (for example, imitating the retina of the eye when restoring vision with an electronic implant). Bidirectional interfaces allow the brain and external devices to exchange information in both directions. The neuro-computer interface is often based on the biofeedback method.
The study of the foundations on which the neuro-computer interface is based is rooted in the teachings of I. P. Pavlova on conditioned reflexes and the regulatory role of the cortex. This scientific direction arose at the very beginning of the 20th century at the Institute of Experimental Medicine (St. Petersburg). Developing these ideas, P. TO. Since 1935, Anokhin has shown that the principle of feedback plays a decisive role in regulating both higher adaptive reactions of a person and his internal environment. As a result, the theory of functional systems was developed, the potential for use of which in neuro-computer interfaces is far from being exhausted. P. Bekhtereva from 1968 to 2008. on deciphering brain codes of mental activity, continued to this day by her followers, including from the standpoint of neurocybernetics and ophthalmoneurocybernetics.
Brain-computer interface research began in the 1970s at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). After many years of experiments on animals, in the mid-nineties, the first devices capable of transmitting biological information from the human body to a computer were implanted into the human body. With the help of these devices, it was possible to restore damaged hearing, vision, and lost motor skills. The successful operation of the BCI is based on the ability of the cerebral cortex to adapt (plasticity property), thanks to which the implanted device can serve as a source of biological information.
At the neurosurgical center in Cleveland in 2004, the first artificial silicon chip was created – an analogue of the hippocampus, which in turn was developed at the University of Southern California in 2003. Silicon has the ability to connect non-living matter with living neurons, and transistors surrounded by neurons receive signals from nerve cells, while capacitors send signals to them. Each transistor on the chip detects the slightest, barely noticeable change in electrical charge that occurs when a neuron “fires” in the process of transmitting sodium ions.
The new chip is capable of receiving impulses from 16 thousand brain neurons of biological origin and sending back signals to several hundred cells. Since neurons were isolated from the surrounding glial cells during the production of the chip, proteins had to be added that “glue” neurons together in the brain, also forming additional sodium channels. Increasing the number of sodium channels increases the chances that ion transport is converted into electrical signals on the chip.
