Monday, February 19, 2007
By Order of the (Virtual) Management
I was reading a car magazine today from the UK. I told you that cars were my sucker punch. Anyway, there was an article in there about how virtual reality plays a part in designing cars, prototypes and even crash test simulations. This got me thinking..how can we use virtual reality in research?
Ok, Second Life blah blah, deng deng, etc etc. What about virtual simulations of our recommendations - kind of like a turbocharged modeling DSS Simulator. Then I thought ok what about virtual people? Virtual respondents? Surely some of human reaction to concepts is based on modeling? As such we can learn from real people and build virtual panels..yes really virtual - clearly applicable only for some kinds of objectives.
Is this possible? In the 1960's the quantitative revolution was based upon human behaviour being predictable and rational (like Weber or Christaller's models). I am not suggesting that. But I am thinking that if we build in appropriate frameworks of thought we can build virtual panels based upon the experience of real human actions and attitudes.
Can that happen? I think that it will, even though it is easy to knock down. Maybe this is what all of the human tests and observations are about on LOST!
Ok, Second Life blah blah, deng deng, etc etc. What about virtual simulations of our recommendations - kind of like a turbocharged modeling DSS Simulator. Then I thought ok what about virtual people? Virtual respondents? Surely some of human reaction to concepts is based on modeling? As such we can learn from real people and build virtual panels..yes really virtual - clearly applicable only for some kinds of objectives.
Is this possible? In the 1960's the quantitative revolution was based upon human behaviour being predictable and rational (like Weber or Christaller's models). I am not suggesting that. But I am thinking that if we build in appropriate frameworks of thought we can build virtual panels based upon the experience of real human actions and attitudes.
Can that happen? I think that it will, even though it is easy to knock down. Maybe this is what all of the human tests and observations are about on LOST!
