Developed by researchers from Japan’s Kanagawa Institute of Technology collaborating with the Fujitsu Social Science Laboratory, the HTC Vive app places a tracking module onto a doll.
神奈川工科大学和富士通社会科学实验室的研究者联合开发了一款新产品——一个洋娃娃，这个洋娃娃上面用HTC Vive软件安装了一个跟踪模块。
You hold the doll, and in VR it comes to life in your arms. The effect begins with the face, which is actually generated from a cross between you and your partner’s faces, de-aged to that of a newborn.
在虚拟现实技术的帮助下，你怀里抱着的洋娃娃仿佛变成了真正的小婴儿。洋娃娃的脸很逼真，是仿照你和你父母的面部而生成的，随后又缩减至婴儿阶段的年龄。
Accurate? Probably not! But by including features you know, that otherwise anonymous baby becomes something you might recognize more as an extension of yourself.
准确吗？很可能一点也不准确，但是却包括了你所知的特点，否则你只会把这个无名宝宝更多地认为是自己的附属产物。
“According to our hypothesis, creating a believable baby resembling the subjects will make them more emotionally invested with the experience,” the researchers write.
研究者写到：“根据我们的假设，创造像实验主体的宝宝才更能让实验主体投入感情。”
But the immersion isn’t just visual, it’s visceral, too. You hear the baby crying, and it appears to actually vibrate in concert with these cries, as if they’re resonating from the child.
创设的这种沉浸感不仅停留在视觉层面，还有内在感情层面。当这个宝宝哭时，同时伴随着真切的哭时身体振动的感觉，就好像这个娃娃真的在哭一样。
To soothe the crying, you must learn how to parent. You can sway, offer a hug, feed the child a bottle, or even pat him on the back to help get out a burp. These specifics are still in development.
为了让哭声停下来，你就必须学习怎样带孩子。你可以摇一摇或抱一抱他，给他喂奶，或者拍拍孩子后背让他打嗝。这些细节还在研究中。
“Currently the project is being refined according to feedback received during public exhibitions . . . [the] inclusion of changing diaper being strongly desired due to the importance it played in raising infants,” the team writes. Indeed. I’d add that swaddling and dealing with spit-up would be handy, too.
“根据公开展示后的反馈，我们目前已经对其做出了调整。换尿布在带婴儿阶段是非常重要的环节，所以大家对增加这个功能的呼声最高，”该团队写到。确实如此。除此之外，很快还会增加包裹婴儿和解决孩子吐唾沫的功能。
Heck, researchers could even add infant CPR training and save most paranoid parents half a day of classes learning, and then forgetting, all of it.
真是活久见！研究者们竟然还能加入婴儿心脏复苏术的训练，帮大多数担惊受怕的父母省去上半天课又忘了的麻烦。