VR Study Says 40% of Us Are Paranoid

Roland Piquepaille writes "UK researchers have recently used virtual reality to check if people had paranoid thoughts when using public transportation. Their VR tube ride experiment revealed that 40% of the participants experienced exaggerated fears about threats from others. Until now, researchers were relying on somewhat unreliable questionnaires to study paranoid thoughts which are often triggered by ambiguous events such as someone laughing behind their back. With the use of VR, psychiatrists and psychologists have a new tool which can reliably recreate social interactions. As the lead researcher said, VR 'is a uniquely powerful method to detect those liable to misinterpret other people.'."

Sounds dangerous....

[gweihir (88907)]

Maube I am being paranoid here, but 40%????

That would explain a lot of the stupidity going on with terrorism and other tools uses to manipulate the public.

Re:

[garett_spencley (193892)]

I'm curious as to paranoid about what ?

They say "exaggerated fears of threats from others" ... but what constitutes a "threat" ?

Personally I'm paranoid that every time I go out in public some passerby is going to cough on me and give me a cold. I know that this is illogical as the more viruses I'm exposed to the better my immune system will be at fighting them off and the less colds I will get, yet I still hate getting sick *so* much due to the added stress imposed that I will go out of my way to avoid putt

Re:Sounds dangerous....

[Ethanol-fueled (1125189)]

"Paranoia" is only a healthy adjustment to the modern world, which IS out to get you. If it's not the terrorists and pedophiles it's the corporations or the government.

Re:Sounds dangerous....

[c_forq (924234)]

If you ever spend some time in nature you will learn that it isn't only the modern world that is out to get you. The primitive world also seeks to destroy you at first available opportunity. Sometimes I think the slashdotters who never leave the basement are the enlightened ones...

Re:

[Lumpy (12016)]

Life experience will adjust your paranoia level.

Young teen that has been sheltered? they are invincible and dont have a care in the world.

Teen girl that has been raped twice before 16? she's paranoid of every male she meets.

Adult that has over the past 20 years had things stolen, homes and cars broken into, robbed, etc.. Then your become more paranoid. To the point that I noticed that only people over 30 want security cameras and recorders in their homes, younger than 30 do not typically. as they get o

Re:

[ushering05401 (1086795)]

The real question is what the hell do the other 60% know that makes them so smug and secure?

Why don't we put on the paranoia pants and walk down that path, huh?

Re:

[jafac (1449)]

What sucks - REALLY sucks, is when the naive 60% accuse you of being paranoid, negative, a downer, depressed, etc. that's supposed to help? I'll tell you what helps. Watching naive people get victimized because they were too stupid to protect themselves. Much nicer being a smug ant, than a starving grasshopper any day.

Re:

[SL Baur (19540)]

I'm curious as to paranoid about what ?

As am I. I presume it's all the fear-mongering in the last 7 years.

The most paranoid I've ever been was on my first train ride in Japan and there was a lovely young lady. 20ish, who got on a few stations before Tokyo and stood by the doors and who had on a most amazing dress that wasn't held up and on by anything that I could detect. I was so afraid it was going to fall down and damage my prudish USian eyes ...

Re:

[RockModeNick (617483)]

Thats a very uncommon version of common sense. Check out: http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/ [nononsense...efense.com] For ways to determine actual threats vs imagined and avoid real ones easily without changing your lifestyle. It's a self defense site built around understanding how violence occurs and stopping it before it starts, rather than teaching how to hurt people first then get arrested later.

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

Actually I'm always paranoid when I am wearing a 5 kg headset that simulates me riding on the subway--unarmed that is. If I have a BFG then it is a different thing altogether. The worst thing about these subway sims is that it is so damn hard to safely fire a rocket--not that they have the decency to put spare ammo or guns in the sim. And even in the very rare sims where you are able to bring your weapons into the subway car it will never move because some damn aliens attacked your research facility. Ba

Re:Sounds dangerous....but bogus

[wwwrench (464274)]

It seems to me that it would be impossible to extrapolate this VR study to real life. I mean, you strap on virtual reality goggles, and are presented with a scene from riding the tube (subway). It's like a video game, so of course you think the characters in it are about to pull out an AK47 and start shooting at you. Plus you are doing it as part of some experiment. What are you told before you strap on the goggles?

But in a an actual ride on the tube, you would be thinking about something else -- you wouldn't be watching all the people, trying to figure out what is going on, as you would during some VR lab test...

Re:Sounds dangerous....but bogus

[Evil Pete (73279)]

But in a an actual ride on the tube, you would be thinking about something else

Perhaps velociraptors [xkcd.com]? In that case at least there are some [mbeckler.org] solutions [xkcd.com].

Re:Sounds dangerous....but bogus

[batquux (323697)]

That's funny. I was thinking if xkcd came up here, it would be referencing this one [xkcd.com].

Re:

[Xiph1980 (944189)]

Well, the 40%, I actually wouldn't be surprised in a highly crowded metro or something. You're always less at ease there, and with the added chance of pickpockets, you're bound to be a tad more paranoid than normal.

What I don't get though, is why they needed VR for this. Couldn't they just have placed 80 people in a crowded room or tube carriage where 10 are real test persons and the other 70 are actors and monitors? (monitor as in, monitoring the behaviour of the test subjects, not a TFT or CRT screen ;)

The Sky Is Falling

[Reziac (43301)]

If you persistently tell people they should be afraid -- they WILL be. It matters not at all whether they SHOULD be.

Witness that, lacking both better things to do and the ethics to do better things, our American news media plays up every negative incident as OMG the sky is falling, run for your lives!! Consequently, ask the average American (or any of our detractors) whether they think violent crime is out of control in the U.S., and they will uniformly declare that it is -- despite that the *actual* incide

Going to be used against us

[El_Muerte_TDS (592157)]

I'm sure these statistics are going to be used against us by the government to push some new laws to will limit our freedom.

Re:Going to be used against us

[Jurily (900488)]

Remember, it's only paranoia if they're not out to get you!

Re:

[nurb432 (527695)]

You sound paranoid to me :)

Uh, maybe I'm just paranoid

[Cthefuture (665326)]

As the lead researcher said, VR 'is a uniquely powerful method to detect those liable to misinterpret other people.

What exactly is meant by that? Will this be used to cleanse the impure or something? "Here are your drugs, citizen"... ?

Hit the Nail on the Head! Too succint?

[rts008 (812749)]

Allow me to expand for our newer PC (politically correct) and city-bred youngsters.

1. We have established ourselves at the top of the food chain on land.
2. Competition of the same species has resulted into numerous conflicts on Earth. Geographical and climate differences seem to back up sociological diff's, thus establishing a basis for conflict: after all, who wants to be wrong?
3. No threat groups: company picnic, or similar like a LUG.
You may not know all of the people there, but they all seem to fall int

wrong much?

[ILuvRamen (1026668)]

Paraonia is an opinion. If someone's laughing right behind you, it's 100% normal to wonder if it's about you. That's basic social interaction and everyone who's paying enough attention SHOULD be concerned. If you completely ignore it or assume it's not about you, you're a sociopath. The morons that ran these experiments probably started with the basis that nobody should be worried about anything ever unless they're being attacked by a tiger or something. Apparently they forgot that if I take one step towards a bird without even looking at it or intending to eat it, it flies away. It's not paranoia, it's normal.

Re:wrong much?

[TeknoHog (164938)]

It's not paranoia, it's normal.

I'll choose the halfway option: it's paranormal.

Re:wrong much?

[ignavus (213578)]

"if I take one step towards a bird without even looking at it or intending to eat it..."

You're a cat, aren't you? Come on, 'fess up.

Hey everybody, there's a cat posting on Slashdot! I thought only dogs were able to post anonymously on the Internet.

(And another proof you are a cat: you misspelled "paranoia". It is well known that cats can't spell. I've seen Lolcats. I'm not fooled.)

Re:

[Stray7Xi (698337)]

How do you differentiate paranoia and caution? Is it paranoid to be uncomfortable with someone in my personal space? How large of personal space is appropriate?

I've never considered myself paranoid but I always find myself thinking ahead. I identify risks and think of how I can mitigate them or react to them. If someone bumps into me, I'm checking my wallet. I try to keep awareness of my surroundings, and I don't understand how people can blissfully enter a state of complete oblivion with Ipod's and th

Paranoid?

[6Yankee (597075)]

No, Roland, we really do hate you that much! *twitch*

Calm

[backslashdot (95548)]

I find solace knowing that the more paranoid and fearful I am, the less likely things will happen to me.

I'm paranoid, so that means I have nothing to worry about!

No wait, now I'm not .. ohh nooo!

Better, better .. hmm nooo!!

Somewhat unreliable

[Jurily (900488)]

Until now, researchers were relying on somewhat unreliable questionnaires to study paranoid thoughts

Like any decent paranoid is going fill those out honestly?

I like links better personally

[OMNIpotusCOM (1230884)]

It's kind of silly to report things like this. How'd that study go?

Pollster: Mind if I ask you some questions?
Person: Sure.
Pollster: Do you like sausage?
Person: Yeah, it's good.
Pollster: Patty or link?
Person: Patty please, something bothers me when it's in the casing of-
Pollster: Are you afraid I'm going to kill you?
Person: I... what? Are you?
Pollster: Thank you for your time.
-------------
Just because you're not paranoid doesn't mean they're not after you - Kurt Cobain

Uncanny valley?

[bargainsale (1038112)]

A lifelike VR simulation is likely to be more creepy than reality because of the "Uncanny valley" effect

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_Valley [wikipedia.org]

Not paranoid in public

[Hawthorne01 (575586)]

but rather, aware of my surroundings and how they might affect me. I'm the first person to jump in if someone needs help, but I keep my eyes open, too.

This is nothing less than Jeff Cooper's Color Code [wikipedia.org] in action.

Huh?

[0123456 (636235)]

This is Britain they're talking about. If you live in Britain today and you're not paranoid, you're crazy.

Re:Huh?

[gardyloo (512791)]

Yes, but if you lived in Britain 200 years ago, and you're reading this, you're also crazy.

What's the context?

[LighterShadeOfBlack (1011407)]

First of all, what pretense was given to the test subjects for the experiment? Obviously you can't tell them "we're going to see if you're paranoid", so what did they tell them? The very act of being in an experiment where you're put in a VR environment is likely to affect behavour and the way you interpret people.

Secondly, put this in context of the location used for the experiment. A VR reproduction of the London underground? A place where you're crowded by people, a place which in all honesty does have a reputation for being a haven for pickpockets (whether that's deserved or not I don't know), and oh yes, one other thing - the site of the last major (successful) terrorist attack on Britain. Gee, do you think any of this might make people a little more wary when put into that environment for an experiment?

Some of this is addressed in TFA of course, but it doesn't correspond to the sensational headlines this peice has been getting in tabloids and on the Internet. Being somewhat cautious in that particular situation is a world away from the headlines implicating that 40% of us are clinically paranoid all the time.

Those people aren't paranoid

[commodoresloat (172735)]

They're just pretending to be paranoid as part of a plot to undermine confidence in public transportation.

The remaining 60%

[gmuslera (3436)]

REALLY have the world against them.

Patenting new business plan...

[JamesTRexx (675890)]

1- Sell tin foil hats at subway stations
2- ?????
3- 40% Profit!

Not all fear is paranoia

[MikeRT (947531)]

I don't get cautious around most black people, but you better believe I get cautious around ones that look like they've bought into the thug culture. Is that paranoid? How do I know that they aren't in fact some wannabe gangbanger? Saying "don't judge a book by its cover" toward people is irrational. Appearances are one of the most effective ways to gauge what sort of person you are dealing with.

Appearances are meaningless

[MisterSquid (231834)]

I don't get cautious around most white people. Being a US academic I'm surrounded by them. They are my friends and colleagues. However, in every city I've lived in except Los Angeles, I have had whites yell "nigger" at me as they drive by in cars. In three places spanning a dozen years, drunken young white male students have challenged me to fight (tried to provoke an excuse to beat me); so far, I open my mouth, they see I'm intelligent, and they go away.

These white men look like any thousands of white men I've seen all my life. Appearances count, in my case, for absolutely nothing.

I wonder, how may times have you been accosted by a black, gangbanger lookalike or otherwise?

Re:Appearances are meaningless

[glittalogik (837604)]

Having just recently been the victim of an attempted bashing (still got bruises), I can understand how events like that put you on edge. Mine was pretty random - I was walking through a park, heard "fucking faggot!" yelled behind me, and turned around just in time to cop a fist to the face. It was mildly ironic, since I was walking with a young lady I'd picked up that night, who yelled and screamed until he went away while I was figuring out how to stand up again, but he obviously knew how to throw a punch, which I sure as hell don't, he didn't care that I was a complete stranger, and I shudder to think how I would have ended up if I'd been on my own.

I'm curious, if sounding intelligent doesn't get you out of one of these situations, what other options do you have at your disposal? Do you or would you consider carrying a firearm? Have you done any martial arts or self-defence training?

A counterpoint to your question, though: The first site I could find [canadafreepress.com] that didn't look like a hatespeech outlet still suggests that black-on-white gang violence, US-wide, is approximately 8 times more prevalent than white-on black, in a country with 6 times as many whites as blacks. If you have any other numbers I'd like to see them.

I'm not excusing anyone's behaviour here, and I admire your restraint in dealing with the fuckwits you've encountered thus far. There are obviously heavy social, cultural, historic, economic and legal factors in the equation, and the above is just one type of crime out of many. I assume there are also rampant reporting discrepancies - yelling "nigger" at someone is a crime pretty much anywhere with hatespeech laws, but I doubt it gets reported or enforced frequently, if ever.

Your thoughts?

Re:Not all fear is paranoia

[by Anonymous Coward]

"Saying "don't judge a book by its cover" toward people is irrational. Appearances are one of the most effective ways to gauge what sort of person you are dealing with."

People dressed in thug clothing are making an effort to associate themselves with a culture of violence. Therefore, the way they look tells you something about their mindset and values.

Err... Uncanny Valley effect?

[JavaRob (28971)]

I RTFA... can we just mod down this entire story?
It's a *virtual reality* subway ride. The other passengers are AI.

The carriage contained neutral computer people (avatars) that breathed, looked around, and sometimes met the gaze of the participants. One avatar read a newspaper, another would occasionally smile if looked at. A soundtrack of a train carriage was played.

Even if none of these participants have *ever* played a video game (which would obviously tend to prime them for something nasty coming up), this sounds creepy just from the description.

People who will feel perfectly normal taking a subway ride with human beings who occasionally meet your gaze or smile, or even talk to themselves.. will be royally spooked if you replace those human passengers with Uncanny Valley [wikipedia.org] inhabitants: not human enough to fool you, but human enough to seem like an animated corpse.

The article completely ignores this effect. It could be useful research -- one can find out useful information about people with the ability to put different people in identical situations -- but it's absolute nonsense to say "wow, 40% of people have paranoid thoughts on a simple subway ride". Go figure, but virtual reality and reality are not, in fact, the same.

Well, duh.

[CSMatt (1175471)]

The more repressive and invasive a government or other powerful entity gets, the more paranoid people become.

Misused term...

[PhotoGuy (189467)]

The term "paranoia" gets thrown around way too much, inappropriately, IMHO... Wiktionary's definition:

1. A psychotic disorder characterized by delusions of persecution
2. Extreme, irrational distrust of others

The study mentions "exaggerated fears" of the threats from others. Sure, it pays to be a bit overly-cautious with strangers on public transportation. That doesn't translate into "extreme, irrational, psychotic, they're-all-out-to-get-me" paranoia... I think "mistrust" is a far more accurate term.

Feminization of man.

[haakondahl (893488)]

Or Feminisation, as this was done in the UK. Shame on you for paying attention to instincts which protected your particular history of DNA for millions of years to the present. The government says you must not resist your mugger, your assailant, your attacker. Sit there and take it or be branded mentally divergent.

UK Public Transportation

[PPH (736903)]

Didn't they have a few bombs go off not long ago? Paranoia? I think not.

Where I live, public transportation is the domain of the lower socio-economic classes (as opposed to places like London, New York, etc. where its use is more widespread). Our fear is of the (sadly common) incidence of transit riders off their meds.

Don't mistake the symptoms for the disease

[sonamchauhan (587356)]

This is the UK we are talking about after all...

UK 'unsafe, dirty and anti-family'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/2980028.stm [bbc.co.uk]

I don't even live there and I think the same

WHY IS THS STUDY WATCHING ME!?!?

[Picass0 (147474)]

I have to go. They're listening

This is from the Uber Nanny State

[gelfling (6534)]

So the definition of Paranoia is clinical, political, helpful, fearful all at the same time. That's more or less the point of England nowadays.

april fools...

[sluggie (85265)]

i mean come on, dr. freeman on a subway...

CBT?

[commodoresloat (172735)]

"Cognitive Behavior Therapy"? Is that what they're calling it [wikipedia.org] these days?