Cognition and Immersion: From Gaming to AR/VR

Catalog description

Since the dawn of civilization, people have used tools and technologies to manipulate their senses, crafting experiences (perceived by the brain as real) to inform, amuse, educate and entertain. From board games to video games, from Virtual Reality to Augmented Reality and emerging innovations in Artificial Intelligence, one shared thread is immersion. This course aims to provide a critical vocabulary and historical context for immersion and immersive experiences by exploring the cognitive operations that underlie this phenomenon. Using tools and theories from neuroscience, psychology, linguistics, computer science, anthropology, narratology, education, and others, we'll examine how brain, mind, and body give rise to the experience of immersion in various platforms (gaming, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Haptics, Immersive Audio, immersive fiction and others). We'll also consider how these tools and experiences can shape and are shaped by human difference and commonality. Immersion is experienced in different ways by different people. These tools have the potential to expand our understanding of human difference and commonality, and also to both reduce and amplify disparate treatment of different peoples. This is a communication intensive course. Students will use writing and oral/multimodal communication to explore immersion and build communication skills. The course has a significant focus on refining writing processes and composing research-based arguments, fostered through writing and communication instruction. Counts as a Communication Intensive course. Counts as a Human Diversity & Commonality course.