The short paper entitled “Self-Motion Illusions (Vection) in VR – Are They Good For Anything?” that we presented earlier this year at the IEEE VR conference was not only accepted (with a 9.5% acceptance rate for short papers) but also received an honorable mention to be amongst the best short papers! We are honored!
Below is a video of the presentation:
In essence, this is probably the first study to really show that self-motion illusions (“vection”) are not only cool, but can actually enhance user’s behavior in VR by facilitating perspective switches that are otherwise difficult.
A paper discussing Sonic Cradle’s theoretical underpinnings, including our psychological framework of immersion and 15 iterative co-design sessions was not only accepted, but awarded an honourable mention at this year’s ACM conference on Designing Interactive Systems. The conference had an acceptance rate just under 20%, and the award puts our paper in the top 2.5% of almost 500 submissions. We are honoured!
The paper is called “Sonic Cradle: Designing for an Immersive Experience of Meditation by Connecting Respiration to Music” and here’s a short description from the conference program where we’re part of a session called “In The Moment”:
– Could an interactive system trigger the psychological benefits of meditation? We are pursuing an answer to this question through a systematic “research through design” approach which explores a psychological framework of media “immersion”. Our approach has generated Sonic Cradle: an interactive system aimed at combining sensory deprivation, respiratory biofeedback and music into a mediated experience of mindfulness.
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I will present the paper in Newcastle in June — hope to see y’all there!
Here’s a recording of the final 5‑min student project presentations from a course that Bernhard was teaching in Spring 2012 at SIAT, entitled “Cognition, Learning, and Collaboration, and the Craft of Research and Writing for Publication (IAT812)”. Enjoy!
Earlier this month, Salvar Sigurdarson had his first ever conference talk at the IEEE Virtual Reality conference in Santa Ana, California. There, he presented a paper he authored, called “Can physical motions prevent disorientation in naturalistic VR?” It went pretty well.
We recorded his talk for posterity, so you can check it out here: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4X-qzeEEpIM]
I’m quite excited and honoured (and did I mention nervous?) about the opportunity to give a short TEDyou presentation at TEDactive 2012 in Palm Springs! Title will be “Moving you in and through virtual reality”. After that I’ll definitely need to relax in the Sonic Cradle — get it ready Jay.
one of the demos shown during my TEDactive talk:
You control the Virtual Reality simulated motion by simply leaning into the direction of intended travel.
It’s going to be a jam packed week, but we will try to keep the system up and running for as long as possible. Come visit us and take a few minutes to pacify your mind and solidify the inspiration you’re sure to get from this year’s ever-fantastic TED talks.
Interested in contributing to world-class research at the intersection of Informatics, Psychology/Cognitive Science, Human Factors/HCI, and Virtual Reality in an interdisciplinary multi-national team? We’re currently looking for bright and motivated PhD/MSc students to join the iSpace lab at the School of Interactive Arts & Technology (SIAT), Simon Fraser University in the greater Vancouver region in beautiful British Columbia, Canada. See http://ispace.iat.sfu.ca/contact/ for details.
We recently took a few pictures of the iSpace immersive video-projection setup with the Gyroxus motion chair as an input device: leaning into the direction you want to move in the virtual enviroment controls the simulated motions. We used a Polhemus 6DOF tracking system instead of the built-in tracking for more precise motion control.
It’s Jay here… I recently had the honour of being invited to Palm Springs to contribute to a project geared toward improving the contemporary flight experience with TED. Not really our main research focus here at iSpace, but since we’re all into design I thought I’d share anyway.
You can read what came out of the session in a piece I wrote for SparkSheet or get a softer taste with the following video documenting my journey (which is airing at ted.com for the current month in the ad slots after TED talks).
Anyway, that’s all! Hope all is at peace with you and yours…
We are currently running experiments and looking for particiants. If interested, sign up on sfu-siat.sona-systems.com or contact one of the iSpace students Daniel, Salvar, Lonnie, or Andrew (see ispace.iat.sfu.ca/people/). Below is a short video of the iSpace VR simulator that’s used in some of the experiments:
Our new iSpace multi-modal VR simulator was first publicly demonstrated at the SIAT showcase on 5. Feb 2011, together with the Sympathetic Guitar project by Jay Vidyarthi which provides the live accompaniment for the video below that we shot during the demo.
This was the first public demo of new iSpace (Riecke) Lab Virtual Reality Simulator at the School of Interactive Arts and Technology (SIAT), Simon Fraser University, Canada, as presented at the SIAT showcase on February 5, 2011.
The goal of the iSpace VR simulator is to provide a flexible research apparatus to study human spatial perception, cognition, and behaviour in reproducible, clearly defined and controllable experimental conditions. We are using Virtual Reality to provide a multi-modal, fairly naturalistic and immersive stimuli in a closed action-perception loop.
The Sympathetic Guitar walks the line between art and science, being both a manifestation of its creator’s cultural lineage and the subject of an experiment on social interactions with technology. The guitarist’s hand position and performance dynamics are used to modulate a deep digital sitar drone as real-time accompaniment. The project represents an exploration of whether a human-computer interface can be designed specifically to generate an engaging socially-immersive relationship with its user. See http://vimeo.com/17421550 for details.
iSpace Simulator Demo Video:
Driving through a virtual city:
Sympathetic Guitar Video:
The iSpace program is centered on investigating what constitutes effective, robust, and intuitive human spatial orientation and behaviour. This fundamental knowledge will be applied to design novel, more effective human-computer interfaces and interaction paradigms that enable similar processes in computer-mediated environments like virtual reality (VR) and multi-media.
To tackle this ambitious agenda, we had to design and build our own flexible research apparatus, which consists of a motion chair mounted on top of a “circular treadmill” (see illustrations/video), which allows us to physically rotate participants and/or elicit compelling self-rotation illusions (induced by biomechanical cues from stepping along with the rotating turntable). To design and build such a setup (which is commercially unavailable), we started a highly fruitful collaboration with several professors in Mechatronics and employed three Mechatronics 3rd year undergraduate students as part of a co-op placement and later as RAs. Together, we started to iteratively design, build, and evaluate a worldwide unique multi-modal VR lab for perceptual/behavioural experiments (see pictures below). The most challenging part, the construction of the circular treadmill-based motion simulator was recently successfully completed by the three undergraduates and was the center piece of the showcase. This included the design and 3D modeling of the mechanical components in solidworks including simulation and stress testing as well as the selection and integration of the electronics, motors, control, gears, etc. and basic interfacing to a control computer. Together with my graduate students, we are currently working on the 3D visual, 3D auditory, and subsonic/vibrational simulation, part of which is showcased in the above video/pictures.
Riecke, B. E. (2010). Compelling Self-Motion Through Virtual Environments Without Actual Self-Motion – Using Self-Motion Illusions (“Vection”) to Improve User Experience in VR. In Virtual Reality (pp. 161 — 188). InTech: Available here
Our new iSpace multi-modal VR simulator was first publicly demonstrated at the SIAT showcase on 5. Feb 2011, together with the Sympathetic Guitar project by Jay Vidyarthi which provides the live accompaniment for the video below that we shot we shot after the official part was over we started playing with our new setup.
This was the first public demo of new iSpace (Riecke) Lab Virtual Reality Simulator at the School of Interactive Arts and Technology (SIAT), Simon Fraser University, Canada, as presented at the SIAT showcase on February 5, 2011. See http://ispace.iat.sfu.ca/ for details or contact me at http://www.siat.sfu.ca/faculty/Bernha…
The goal of the iSpace VR simulator is to provide a flexible research apparatus to study human spatial perception, cognition, and behaviour in reproducible, clearly defined and controllable experimental conditions. We are using Virtual Reality to provide a multi-modal, fairly naturalistic and immersive stimuli in a closed action-perception loop.
The Sympathetic Guitar walks the line between art and science, being both a manifestation of its creator’s cultural lineage and the subject of an experiment on social interactions with technology. The guitarist’s hand position and performance dynamics are used to modulate a deep digital sitar drone as real-time accompaniment. The project represents an exploration of whether a human-computer interface can be designed specifically to generate an engaging socially-immersive relationship with its user. See http://vimeo.com/17421550 for details.
In a series of videos created by Simon Fraser University’s Teaching and Learning Centre, eighteen Faculty of Communication, Art and Technology (FCAT) professors talk about the focus of their research, their current projects, and what excites them about teaching. The videos showcase the broad spectrum of exciting research uniquely found in this one new Faculty. The professors share thought-provoking and contemporary ideas that pervade FCAT, demonstrating the creative mix of programs that both challenge and complement one another, spawning new and interesting discoveries amongst students and faculty.
Prof. Bernhard Riecke on his research interests and vision:
I’m quite excited and honoured (and did I mention nervous?) about the opportunity to give a short TEDyou presentation at 
