Social, ethical, and legal issues in presence research and applications: EC report for Peach FP6 Coordination Action

Report

This report analyses the social, ethical, and legal issues of Presence technologies and their implications for society. Most generally, Presence is an emerging and interdisciplinary field of research and refers to the cognitive experience of being somewhere.1 Presence thus aims at achieving realistic feelings and experiences of an environment that does not actually exist, using a broad range of technologies. While virtual and augmented realities, CAVEs, head-mounted displays, and high-end cinemas are among the more well-known examples, recent developments have brought about novel and potentially more intrusive technologies like brain-computer interfaces (BCI), which can translate brainwaves into control signals and vice versa. Over the past decade, research in this area has made considerable progress: in one case researchers have successfully enabled a tetraplegic to steer a virtual wheelchair through a virtual environment just with their thoughts. While Presence technologies are only slowly entering mass markets and applications in fields like medicine, military, entertainment or gaming, they are likely to play an increasingly important role in society. Powered by recent advances in disciplines like neuroscience, cognitive science, computer science and psychology, Presence technologies are therefore bound to change the world as we experience it.

Authors: Schroeder, R; Meyer, E; Ziewitz, M

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: European Commission
• Journal: Social, Ethical, and Legal Issues in Presence Research and Applications
• Publication date: 2009-05-01
• Keywords: SBTMR