WE DO WHAT WE'RE TOLD?

So depending on your point of view, this is good or bad news:  as it turns out, it is not the case that Milgram's infamous torture experiment was recreated in Second Life with an avatar.  (As erroneously blogged here, here, and here.)  That misapprehension apparently stemmed from a confusing news headline, "Outlawed experiments may get second life in virtual world", which reported on University College of London professor Mel Slater's virtual Milgram experiment.  "In fact we carried out the experiment not in Second Life," Professor Slater explained to me by e-mail, when I checked with him, "but in a highly immersive virtual reality system usually called a Cave, using our own software."

Also depending on your point of view, this is good or bad news:  Professor Slater is interested in demonstrating his experiment in Second Life, and he's looking for volunteers to help make that happen.  Details after the break.

"I can imagine that I could get some of the authors of the paper [check the "Computer Science" section of that site] together in Second Life," Professor Slater told me, "and also have an avatar representing the 'subject' (the Learner who received the shocks.)  For the latter, we would probably need some help from the Second Life technical people...  We wouldn't actually repeat the experiment in Second Life, but maybe a demonstration."

If you're interested in helping the Professor develop that demo, e-mail me, and if I can personally recommend you, I'll forward your information to him.

Comments

[Moriash Moreau]

Well, it'd be a relatively simple matter to rig the necessary animations, sound effects, and in-world props for such a recreation. I think we've all seen similar things, and worse, in your friendly neighborhood SL S&M shop. Actually, that kind of thing is so much part of SL culture that considerable care and setup would be required to create an appropriately serious-appearing scenario. I think we've all deliberately tortured (not to trivialize the RL equivalent of the concept) and even outright killed our avatars (How many folks played Russian Roulette after that article was posted?), in quite graphic and realistic manners, for fun, at one time or another. I think a seasoned SL veteran might be an atypical, and possibly unacceptably contaminated, subject for the VR recreation.

In any case, it makes me wonder how the experiment would be changed if the experiment used our own avatars, in place of the generic female representation. Some folks identify quite closely with their onscreen personae.

[Ombrone]

Gosh, with all the various BDSM communities that exist in SL, the poor professor will be overhelmed by volunteers....

[barry]

There is an art show in NYC right now at Anna Kustera inspired by the Milgram experiments. See:

http://www.artcal.net/event/view/1/3639

[Relee Baysklef]

Thank goodness you can't actually recreate the Milgramm experiment in SL! That traumatized enough college students the first time, I think.

I'm not sure what good a memorial/dramatization would do, but people are free to create whatever neat things they want.

[Baba]

Here's a Cave

http://www.evl.uic.edu/pape/CAVE/DLP/