A Notre Dame researcher proposes to remove anxiety and explore how virtual reality can improve the performance of scientists. However, to reap these benefits, researchers need to strategize carefully and avoid potential pitfalls.

In 2021, Facebook pushed the term “metaverse” to the forefront of internet discourse, renamed it Meta, and announced a plan to build “a series of interconnected digital spaces that allow you to do things you cannot do in the physical world.” Since then, the meta-universe has been named differently. Some people see it as the “future of the Internet”, while others dismiss it as “an amorphous concept that no one really needs”.

For Diego Gomez-Zara, associate professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Notre Dame, the metaverse is something else: a tool for better science.

In a recently published article Nature Human Behavior, Gómez-Zara argues that scientists should leverage the metaverse for research and guard against the potential dangers of working in virtual reality.

Virtual environment, real benefits

Together with co-authors Peter Schiffer (Department of Applied Physics and Department of Physics, Yale University) and Dashun Wang (Northwest University McCormick School of Engineering), they describe the Gomez-Zara metadata warehouse as a virtual space where users can interact in a three-dimensional environment and perform actions that affect the outside world.

The researchers say the metaverse will benefit science in four main ways.

First, it can remove barriers and make science more accessible. Gómez-Sara says we don’t need to think far into the future to understand these possibilities. Instead, we can point to how researchers are starting to use virtual environments in their studies.

For example, scientists at the School of Pharmacy at University College London have created a digital replica of their lab that can be visited in virtual reality. This digital copy allows scientists around the world to come together, collaborate and make joint decisions on how to advance a research project.

Similarly, virtual lab training, developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, teaches young scientists in many different locations to identify parts of the lab and even perform emergency procedures.

This example illustrates a second benefit: improved teaching and learning.

Gómez-Zara explains: “It is very difficult for a person with surgical training to perform a procedure without making mistakes the first time. And if you’re working with a real patient, one mistake can be very damaging. Experiential learning in a virtual environment can help you try things and make mistakes without harmful consequences, and avoidance of harmful consequences can enhance research in other fields as well.”

Gomez-Zara is also working with the Notre Dame Virtual Reality Lab team to understand a third potential benefit related to the social aspect of science. A research group examines the impact of the online environment on teamwork processes. They discovered that virtual environments can help teams collaborate more effectively than videoconferencing.

“After the pandemic, we all learned to videoconferencing,” says Gomez-Zara. “But that doesn’t mean that video calling is the most effective tool for solving every task. Especially for intense social activities like team building and innovation, virtual reality is a much closer replica of what we can have offline and can be much more effective.”

Gomez-Zara says the metaverse can be used to create entirely new experimental environments.

“If you can get data and images from a place, you can create a virtual replica of that place in virtual reality,” explains Gómez-Zara. For example, he says, we have images of Mars taken by satellites and robots. “This can be used to create a virtual reality version of the environment where scientists can experience what it looks like there. Eventually, they can even interact with the environment remotely.”

Potential pitfalls

Gómez-Zara emphasizes that in order to realize all the benefits of the meta universe, we must also avoid the many pitfalls associated with it.

There are still barriers to using virtual reality. Virtual reality glasses and related equipment are becoming more affordable, but require a significant investment.

This issue is related to a larger issue: who owns the meta universe? Currently, a handful of tech companies control the metaverse, but Gomez-Zara notes that there have been calls for agencies and others to support research to invest in creating an open, public metaverse. Meanwhile, she says it’s important for researchers to think about questions of ownership and privacy when they work in the metadata warehouse.

However, its overall message is one of hope. “We still tend to associate the metaverse with entertainment and casual communication, so it’s easy to dismiss it,” he says. “But look how quickly we all adapted to technologies we rarely used before the pandemic. It may be the same for the metaverse. We need a research community to investigate this. This is the best way to plan for risks and also be aware of all possibilities.” Source