Virtual and Cognition - An Introduction

Virtual reality enables (partial) immersion of a person in an artificial world that can simulate real life conditions, or create the conditions of a new world. The interaction of the person with the virtual world involves almost all the subject's cognitive faculties: perception, action, memory, emotion, etc. These faculties are natural ones, buth they are used in new contexts. They have to be conjugated in the virtual tense. Basing our argument on virtual reality applications, we propose a study of these cognitive faculties, and of their adaptation.

The document begins with a presentation of the concept of virtual reality. Firstly, typical examples serve to illustrate and then characterize its nature. Then we present the various contributions to this document. The unifying thread is determined by the various faculties brought into play in the field of cognitive sciences. In this way approaches from philosophy, psychology, artificial intelligence and art are explored.