The Historical Development of Virtual Reality

To safely train airplane pilots how to fly “blind” (by instruments alone), Edwin Link created a flight simulator cockpit, called the Link Trainer, in 1929. Pilots could sit inside a closed cockpit, see the instrument panel, and interact with the controls. Soon commercial airlines were training pilots with the Link Trainer, and the U.S. government purchased them during World War 2 to train new military pilots (Britannica 2018, 2023; photo from Naval Air Station).

Viewers would sit on a chair and place their heads into the cowling of an arcade-like console called the Sensorama. He created a larger booth that would accommodate four viewers at a time. The Sensorama provided 3-D images, a wide-angle view, stereo sound, scent-emitters, fans for air movement, and vibrations (Sakane). As viewers watched the recording, they would experience all of the sensory effects that were synchronized to the events in the film. For example, someone riding a motorcycle through New York City would smell exhaust fumes from other vehicles, hear traffic sounds, feel the vibrations of the seat, and have the wind blowing in their faces. (Photos from immersivearchive.org.) Heilig produced 5 short films, including Motorcycle and Dune Buggy, and then took the Sensorama on a nation-wide tour. Unfortunately, he never succeeded in finding a wealthy investor who could fund the transition of his invention prototypes to a commercially available product.

Roman philosopher Cicero popularized a moral parable in his 45 B.C. book, “Tusculan Disputations.” The parable illustrates how those in power live their lives under the specter of anxiety and death (Andrews). The tyrant in the parable, Damocles, had to sleep in a bed with a sword (the Sword of Damocles) suspended from the ceiling directly over his resting place.

In 1968 a device called the “Stereoscopic-Television Apparatus for Individual Use,” nicknamed the Sword of Damocles, was created by Ivan Sutherland with the help of his student, Bob Sproull, at the University of Utah. This time the “sword” consisted of tubular VR headset apparatus suspended from the ceiling, with head-movement sensors hanging from an overhead X-shaped support structure.

The headset would display left and right output from a computer program that adapted in real time to the head movements of the wearer. The images consisted of wire-frame 3D environments. Videos are available on the Internet that show the cumbersome headset being worn by Sutherland (e.g., Walkden; photo from Gupta). Sutherland’s invention was an early example of what is today called a “head-mounted display.”

The results of the intervention were positive. Kandalaft, the leader of the study, stated, “Significant increases on social cognitive measures of theory of mind and emotion recognition, as well as in real life social and occupational functioning were found post-training” (Kandalaft).

Scenarios could be set up so that the participants (interviewee in the chair) are questioned by the participating therapist (interviewer in the chair), and the coach therapist (doorway) observes and provides feedback (caption and photo from Kandalaft).