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We conduct research on how people navigate in the presence of other people, which we study by putting human subjects in a virtual reality (VR) environment (via a VR headset) and asking them to navigate around obstacles, which may be virtual "people." The key question is how they navigate around other people, a topic called "social wayfinding." Navigation and wayfinding are essential aspects of human cognition, which require us to integrate many types of information in real time in order to accomplish goals. Virtual environments constitute an ideal setting for studying this kind of decision-making, because we as experimenters can control every aspect of the environment, including the structure of the environment, the visual cues available, and the task. This allows us to study human behavior and choices in a very focused manner, including only the cues or tasks we aim to understand.
POSSIBLE PROJECTS
In one ongoing project, we program (non-moving) people in the VR setting, and ask subjects to navigate around them. For example, the subject may be immersed in a virtual train station, and will be asked to walk to the "gate", navigating around some virtual people standing in the way. Key experimental questions involve how our subjects choose to navigate around these virtual people, as a function of characteristics of the people. For example, how do subjects move around someone who is sitting vs. standing, paying attention vs. not, able-bodied vs. disabled, etc.? If there are multiple virtual people, does it matter if the people seem to be socially engaged with each other (e.g. engaged in conversation)? If so, how can you tell who is "socially engaged"?
In another ongoing project, we program including moving virtual people in the VR setting, which greatly complicates the subject's decisions. When people navigate around other moving people, who do they avoid colliding with them? Does the chosen pathway depend on the speed with which other people are moving, or the pathway they are taking, or other personal characteristics? Do they choose their entire pathway all at once, or do they plan it one short piece at a time?
Students involved in both projects will learn a variety of skills, including the Unity programming language (which we use to program VR simulations), motion capture technology (which we use to obtain movement routines for virtual agents), the R statistical programming language (which we use to analyze the results), principles of experimental design, and scientific paper writing.
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