HCC: Improving Spatial Perception in Virtual Environments

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This project uses a novel approach of applying expertise in perceptual science to solve the engineering problem of creating displays that are perceived veridically. This project applies a sophisticated understanding of the perceptual information needed to visually determine distances to the engineering of effective virtual environment visual displays. Distance perception involves a complex interaction between different sources of sensory information and between different aspects of the available visual information. The nature of this interaction rapidly adapts over time. Taken together, this significantly complicates our ability to understand and describe the processes involved. While perceptual psychologists have for many years manipulated visual stimuli in ways that change depth perception, the idea that we can do so in a way that is stable over time and which satisfies a variety of engineering constraints associated with virtual environment applications is novel and untested.The project is intrinsically multidisciplinary, involving genuine collaboration between computer scientists and cognitive psychologists and leading to an exceptional educational environment. The investigators have a well established record of involving undergraduates and women in research and will continue that tradition with this work. Undergraduate students in both computer science and psychology at the University of Utah have been directly involved in research projects similar to this one, leading to high quality senior theses and journal publications.