Place illusion and plausibility can lead to realistic behaviour in immersive virtual environments

In this paper address we the question as to why participants tend to respond realistically to situations and events portrayed within an Immersive Virtual Reality (IVR) system. The idea is put forward, based on experience of a large number of experimental studies, that there are two orthogonal components that contribute to this realistic response. The first is"being there", often called"presence", the qualia of having a sensation of being in a real place. We call this Place Illusion (PI). Second, Plausibility Illusion (Psi) refers to the illusion that the scenario being depicted is actually occurring. In the case of both PI and Psi the participant knows for sure that that they are not"there" and that the events are not occurring. PI is constrained by the sensorimotor contingencies afforded by the virtual reality system. Psi is determined by the extent to which the system can produce events that directly relate to the participant, and the overall credibility of the scenario being depicted in comparison with expectations. We argue that when both PI and Psi occur, participants will respond realistically to the virtual reality.

Mentides arriscades

Les relacions humanes estan impregnades de tabús amb arrels culturals. Un dels molts tabús de la nostra cultura és el de l'engany. Ja de ben petits se'ns educa per dir sempre la veritat, malgrat que ben aviat els infants s'adonen que els adults diuen força mentides. El fet de mentir està molt arrelat a la condició humana.Tothom ho fa en major o menor grau, per acció o per omissió. Mentim cada cop que diem una cosa que sabem que no és certa,quan no diem el que pensem o quan diem el que no pensem o el que no sabem [...].

Reputation and honesty in a market for information

Previous works on asymmetric information in asset markets tendto focus on the potential gains in the asset market itself. We focus on the market for information and conduct an experimental study to explore, in a game of finite but uncertain duration, whether reputation can be an effective constraint on deliberate misinformation. At the beginning of each period, an uninformed potential asset buyer can purchase information, at a fixed price and from a fully-informed source, about the value of the asset in that period. The informational insiders cannot purchase the asset and are given short-term incentives to provide false information when the asset value is low. Our model predicts that, in accordance with the Folk Theorem, Pareto-superior outcomes featuring truthful revelation should be sustainable. However, this depends critically on beliefs about rationality and behavior. We find that, overall, sellers are truthful 89% of the time. More significantly, the observed frequency of truthfulness is 81% when the asset value is low. Our result is consistent with both mixed-strategy and trigger strategy interpretations and provides evidence that most subjects correctly anticipate rational behavior. We discuss applications to financial markets, media regulation, and the stability of cartels.