Patiency - The Feeling of Being Acted upon in Virtual Reality - a talk by Dooley Murphy

Abstract

VR theorists of the 1990s and ’00s wrote that agency—the capacity to act—is the hallmark of the then-new immersive medium. The “satisfying” power to take “meaningful” action is the central tenet and sine qua non of narrative and interaction design in virtual worlds, we were told. With the benefit of hindsight, we can say that this view was premature, blinkered, and unhelpfully prescriptive. Equally important (if not more so!) is agency’s inverse, its opposite number. That is, patiency—the feeling of being acted upon by virtual agents, objects, or other aspects of stereoscopic, wraparound representations. Vertigo, butterflies, and reflex-like startles are the most pronounced affective indicators of patiency, but we’ll also touch on its subtler cognitive characteristics. In this talk, Dooley Murphy, reflecting on 250+ VR stories, games, and artworks sampled over the past decade or so, expounds the concept of patiency, explaining why it’s a key consideration in both the design and analysis of VR experiences… And infinitely more consequential than the mere “spectacle” or shallow “attraction” as which it’s sometimes dismissed.