Perception research using immersive virtual reality technology

Using immersive virtual reality (VR) we manipulate the visual body, the contents of the virtual world, and the sensory stimulus while performing or viewing actions. Using state-of-the-art VR we manipulate these features in real-time and are able to do this through fast VR capture and rendering technology. My primary focus is space and body perception. Space perception is the ability to experience the world in three dimensions and the distances to and between objects in the world. Body perception is the experience we have of our physical selves (and parts of ourselves, i.e. hands, legs, torso). In our research group we focus on the perception of the size, shape and form of our surrounding world and our bodies. Our results show that the body (both physical and visual) is important for perceiving distances and sizes in the world and about the body. Further, people are able to communicate with others more effectively if they have body gestures available for both of the telepresence partners (avatar mediated communication). Finally we show that upper body language alone is important for recognition of emotions in natural narrative scenarios (story-telling)