If you kill enough virtual humans can you take what have you done to the real world? Is it possible to have a human recreate an act so much they become desensitized to it? Whenever video games come into the fold, usually after a tragedy, these questions are asked ad nausea. The research has constantly shown there are no long-term effects to video games but now the question is pivoting to VR.
VR is without a doubt a completely different gaming experience. You are visually and auditorily remove from your surroundings, taking you deeper into the emersion then we have been able to go so far. There is a term that is used to sum the experience called Place Illusion in which the user will believe that they are experiencing a situation. (Rovira et al 2009) It is this illusion that could be the dividing factor between our 2-D gaming and the experience in a 3-D space.
At the time I have failed to find anything beyond speculation since not a lot of research has been done directly in this field yet. At least that has been published in a place that it is available. An article that can help give us an idea is a Wired.com article about our good old friend, porn. Not just any porn though, but VR porn. This article talks about while the world of porn is becoming more of an exhibition show, the demand for VR porn is a much more intimate type of experience. One of the most popular genres is the girlfriend experience where the sex that is practiced by the porn star is "more natural". This goes against what many expect and how we think people will or should act with artificial intelligence.(nytimes.com) While we aren't on the level of full AI we are getting close to a more realistic interaction.
It might be that the experience is so novel that people have not become numb enough to desire a more raunchy scenario or we could be seeing an experience real enough to be pulling on empathy; a situation so real we feel we are really a part of it. If we are experiencing more empathy it could be possible to say that people will tend to act less aggressive in VR or that people will become more desensitized to situations in the way those who are wary of video games have been afraid of the whole time. There are times where VR has been used for therapy so now the question exists as to its adverse effects.
Personally, I don't think it's anything but a novel experience in which we will find that people can immediately detach as they take off the headset. Like any other game, once we quite out, the fantasy is over. While the immediate immersion is better, it's still nothing but a game and a fantasy, easily separated from reality. Even with the lines becoming blurred, like from a dream, the reality ends where the real world begins. This is just speculation at this point because there isn't too much research available on it but the question is starting to be asked and I think we need to start talking about it.
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