The Living Environments Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin-Madison proposes to host e3iVR ? a two day conference Ethical issues in the investigational and interventional uses of immersive Virtual Reality which will produce a set of guidelines for the ethical conduct of research experiments as well as clinical treatments. Despite the early promise of immersive virtual reality (VR) from the 1990's the field has languished for almost 20 years, and very little investigational or clinical use of immersive VR occurred. Recent developments in image quality, image capture, display platforms, and inexpensive VR technologies now heralded a return of explorations of the research and clinical uses of immersive VR. However, many ethical issues remain unaddressed, including informed consent, integrity of the sense of person, meaningful explanation of side effect and consequences of a VR experience, and fair notification of the extensive data tracking now possible in these systems. Following an optional tour of the LEL CAVE and three public lectures to introduce the ideas of VR, cognition and behavior, and ethics that will be open to a general audience, an invited group of participants will spend an evening and the next day exploring ethical issues and proposing a parsimonious set of guidelines. The product of the conference will be disseminated through our website, professional meetings and journals, social media, and partnerships with clinical and human subjects protection groups. The Living Environments Laboratory at UW Madison is uniquely qualified to lead this conference on ethics in VR. During the past five years our group designed and deployed a 6-sided VR CAVE which has been used for basic and applied work including comparison of perception precision in VR and physical spaces [1], rehabilitation medicine [2], and home care [3]. We also have hosted over 4,000 people in public tours, industry engagements, educational exercises and scholarly demonstrations. While we are guided by good sense and experience, the move from an experimental lab to an established shared resource and clinical tool requires more systematic considerations about ethics. We have engaged national leaders in biomedical ethics (Ken Goodman), information technologies and underserved groups (Chris Gibbons), and cognition and VR (Jodie Plumert) as well as a local advisory committee consisting of faculty, ethicists, clinicians, and community stakeholders.
Immersive virtual reality technologies (e.g. Oculus Rift) provide an opportunity for researchers and clinicians to study health issues and treat patients in new ways. The promising research methodology raises ethical issues such as (1) informed consent, (2) clarification of risk, and (3) estimation of benefit which need to be considered when utilizing this technology with human subjects and patients. We will host a conference that will include a half-day of public lectures followed by an invitation-only work group who will identify ethical issues and draft guidelines to address them. These guidelines for the investigational and interventional use of immersive virtual reality will be widely disseminated for discussion and adoption.
