A US university is undertaking research to determine whether longterm exposure to Virtual Reality (VR) will generate psychophysiological effects that are detrimental to health.

The new high tech research facility at Michigan State University, called the Media Interface and Network Design (Mind) Lab, is pioneering communications applications that run on wearable computers for three dimensional (3D) virtual environments.

Researchers at the university have so far found that prolonged exposure to virtual realty can temporarily rewire the brain's perceptual systems, but it is unknown whether regular, daily doses have permanent effects.

Frank Biocca, director of the Mind D Lab explained: "With the integration of a common VR interface to television, the telephone, personal computers and even the radio and newspapers, future generations may accumulate as many as 15 years in virtual environments over their lifespan."

He added that the Mind Lab looked at two types of communications - that between humans and computers, the socalled man/machine interface, and communication between people.

As a result, one of the Mind Lab?s first projects will require students, wearing a monocular display driven by a wearable computer, to enter a "see through" virtual environment on a long term basis. The gear includes a device for integral head tracking and for transmitting wireless data to a host that logs students' experiences.

The monocular display creates a "tube" of tactical information around the students? body that will stay fixed as they turn their heads, and the tactical information is overlaid on "normal" reality in a comparable fashion to heads up displays in pilots' cockpits.

A sensor tracks the students? movements so that the tube display can change its tactical overlays to fit whatever they are viewing at any time. A video camera transmits images every second to the logging host and whenever the student pushes a button, a one minute loop of audio recorded from the environment is transferred.

Biocca said: "We call it the recorded life project because the student will be able to push a button that transfers the current audio loop and sets a cue point that will allow others to later share significant moments in the student's life."

In future, he intends to undertake other studies to demonstrate that people can either adapt to viewing both the real world and virtual worlds without lingering aftereffects, or to come up with VR technologies to which the brain does not need to adapt in the first place.