Scientists used virtual reality to trick people into thinking they had swapped bodies with a friend.
They demonstrated that people have memory issues unless they can adapt to the new body...which included acting like the person who's body they were in.
Weird, huh?
Or rather, they acted and adjusted their personality to match how they saw their friend.
The experiment has implications for therapy for depersonalization disorder.
It might also say something about how VR avatars might affect us. Could we use "body swapping" to help us learn skills? What is the impact on our personality if we perceive ourselves as an elf or a dwarf? Or a different gender? Would VR therapy help trans people? Would it help cis people better understand trans people? Could we use VR 'body swapping' to help architects see the world from a child's eye view and thus produce better design that's more friendly to children, which is an issue?
And would it be good for all of us to step into the shoes of our friends for a while?
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