Sex, lies and virtual reality: women on top in reality test

LONDON, April 15, 1998 (AFP) - Women are less prone than men to suffer from delusions resulting from exposure to virtual reality, according to a report published Wednesday in the monthly Neurosciences, part of the Nature publishing group.

A team of French researchers tested the effects of a virtual reality disply that gave misleading signals on a group of human volunteers of both sexes, and found that women were more resistant to its disorientating effects, Nature Neurosciences reported.

In an article headed "Sex, Lies and Virtual Reality", the team explained that the vestibular system, the part of the brain that processes signals from the inner ear and provides the sense of balance, enables humans to determine how far they have spun around in a rotating chair, even in total darkness.

The researchers sought to determine what happened when a virtual reality device was used to fool the vestibular system.

The volunteers "were turned around while watching a virtual reality display that gave misleading information about how far they had turned; rotating the chair by 180 degrees caused a rotation of the virtual reality display that appeared to be only 90 degrees."

They were then tested again in total darkness, to determine whether their vestibular system had been reset by the false visual signals.

"Surprisingly, the male subjects showed significantly more resetting than the females," the report said.

The ability to assess the situation correctly was reduced by 33 percent among the men and only 15 percent among the women.

"Whether this means men are more adaptable or merely more easily fooled probably depends on your point of view. But either way, it seems that the brains of men and women differ in more ways than previously realized," the researchers commented.

The experiment has no lasting effects on subjects, one of the researchers later told AFP.