Monthly Archives: September 2022

MALDEN, MA A Malden dancer will soon feature in what organizers describe as an experimental augmented reality dance experience centered in Cambridges Kendall Square Canal District.

Dubbed Emotive Lands, the performance is a product of the arts collective The Click. Anyone can access the performance via a corresponding app available from Oct. 1 through Nov. 30. There will also be a live performance where artists will interact with the digital, augmented reality Emotive Lands content along the water in the Canal District on Oct. 1 at 1 p.m.

Audience members can access the app, once it is available, via The Clicks website, via the Apple App Store, the Google Play Store, or via other app vendors.

Audience members will be able to go to the Canal District, either during the live launch show or at any other time during the apps availability to view the augmented reality show around them. Viewers who download the app and open it near Kendall Square will see visual prompts that will lead them to spots where they can see virtual dancers on their screens. Dancers will interact with various physical objects in the environment as part of the show.

The app uses technology that is somewhat similar to technology seen in massively popular games like Pokemon Go.

At least nine local artists are involved in the Emotive Lands project, including Maldens Alexandria Nunweiler, who appears in some aspects of the app.

The overlap of AR technology and the arts is pretty small right now, but it's growing, app developer James Peerless said in a press release announcing this project. Its a way to bring the feeling of being at a live performance in an on-demand way.

We want people to see the power of community when engaging with this work, dancer Kristin Wagner added.

Our work is heightened by the creative freedom that technology offers audience members are free to come and go at any time, Wagner later continued.

Emotive Lands is backed by a series of grants and residency programs.

The Click dates back to 2021 and is marking its first project as a group with the launch of Emotive Lands.

The Click's Emotive Lands app and live performance are both free.

The live performance will begin at 15 Broad Canal Way in Cambridge and follow a walking path along the Charles River with several stops.

A rain date is set for Oct. 2.

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Malden Dancer Part Of Upcoming Augmented Reality Dance Project - Patch

Duration judgments

The sun was a constant component of the environment and was designed to move with either its natural speed on the horizon or to not move at all. Participants completed 8 trials in total, 6 minutes each, and were not informed of the fact that trials were of equal length, nor of the number of trials they would complete. Moreover, throughout the experiment participants listened to ambient sounds of sea waves and wind through headphones.

We experimentally manipulated the level of immersion by asking participants to complete the task in both a non-immersive and an immersive environment, in front of the LCD monitor or with the head mounted device (HMD) respectively. In order to probe the effect of cognitive load, as in the original study, in half of the trials participants were asked to complete the classical n-back task30. These experimental conditions amount to 2 (immersion) 2 (sun movement) 2 (cognitive load) design. At the end of each trial, participants were asked to estimate the duration of the time of the passed trial in seconds, following Schatzschneider et al. 2016 design. At the beginning and the end of the experimental session participants were also asked to complete a Simulator Sickness Questionnaire (SSQ), the change of this score is used as Simulator Sickness Score. To test the effects of each experimental condition we run a 2 2 2 Repeated measures ANOVA, with the Simulator Sickness Score as a covariate in a separate run. Results were adjusted for multiple comparison with a Bonferroni correction where needed.

First, we tested the effect of the manipulation of the sun. In the original study authors found that when no task was executed, participants estimated the time to be longer when the sun was still than when it moved at its natural speed. We found no significant effect of the manipulation of the speed of the movement of the sun on time estimation (F(1,36) = 0.103, p = 0.750, Fig. 1A) even when we look only at the condition with no-task (two-tailed t(36) = 0.191, p = 1, adjusted for multiple comparisons, Fig. 2). To make sure that the effect was not inhibited by the unpleasant simulator effect we included the score as a covariate to the ANOVA analysis. Although adding the SSQ score improves fit of the model, (residuals(full + SSQ) < residuals (full), where residual = data fit), it has no significant effect on the sun, immersion, or interaction between sun and immersion.

Mean duration estimation for each experimental condition. Error bars indicate SEM. We found no significant effect of sun (A) nor immersion (C). We found a significant effect of cognitive load (B). Post-hoc tests indicated that subjects estimated time to be shorter in the condition with an n-back task compared to the condition with no task (t(36)=8.307, p=6.876e10,d=0.59).

Mean estimation as an interaction between the sun and cognitive load. We did not replicate the effect from the original study.

We replicated the classical cognitive load result11 and found a significant effect of the task on trial duration estimation (F(1,36) = 69.013; p = 6.874e-10, p2= 0.657). Post-hoc test revealed duration estimation to be shorter when participants performed a task than when they were passively present in the environment (t(36) = 8.307, p = 6.876e10,d = 0.59, Fig. 1B).

Schatzschneider et al.28 reported shorter duration estimation in non-immersive (LCD) than in immersive (HMD) environments. We did not replicate this result and no effect of the environment was found on duration estimation (F(1,36)=0.588; p=0.448, Fig.1C), however, we found a significant interaction between cognitive load and immersion (F(1,36)=6.854; p=0.013, (upeta _{P}^{2} = 0.16))when no task was assigned participants estimated time to be longer in an immersive environment, but when participants performed a task, they estimated the duration to be longer in a non-immersive environment (Fig.3A). We initially thought that this is again a cognitive load effectin immersive environment participants were exposed to fewer distractors and could focus on the task more, and engage more cognitive resources. However, performance was slightly higher in the LCD condition (paired t(73)=2.7156, p=0.0083, Fig.3A inset). In light of these results, we hypothesize that HMD was somehow a more challenging environment. In the non-immersive environment, in the condition with no task, participants were exposed to the rest of the experimental room, which resulted in a more complex environment as opposed to the HMD condition where only the virtual island could be observed.

(A) Mean estimation as interaction between immersion and cognitive load. Inset Performance (sensitivity index A) during the n-back task for the two immersion levels. (B) Average time estimation over the course of the experiment, regardless the experimental condition. In gray label shuffled permutation, shaded area represents standard deviation. (C) Scatter plot of the mean duration estimation during HMD trials and the SSQ score. Each dot represents one participant.

Although negative simulator symptoms did not specifically affect the effect of the sun on time estimation, we tested whether it had any effect on average time estimation. To assess the statistical significance of this relationship we regressed the SSQ score on duration estimation measurements. The SSQ score explained a significant amount of the variance of the duration estimation (F(1,294) = 9.590, p = 0.002,R = 0.178,R2 = 0.032). The regression coefficient (B = 3.765,95%,CI = [1.372,6.156]) indicated that an increase in SSQ score by 1 increased, on average, the duration estimation by 4 seconds (Fig. 3C). We hypothesize that this effect of aversive simulator sickness symptoms, like nausea or vertigo, is mediated by the link between physiological arousal and time perception. It has previously been shown that various types of arousal affect interval timing4,5,6, especially unpleasant stimuli dilate time perception31. Although Schatzschneider et al.28 also collected SSQ responses, they did not provide analysis beyond score change.

As stated above, we did not replicate the effect of immersion on time duration estimation. Although the effect reported in the original paper was not significant, it did appear as a strong trend, at least for conditions with a task. In the original paradigm, participants had always started with a non-immersive block and continued onto an immersive block. Such a linear design is confounded by fatigue. At the beginning of the experiment, participants may estimate the duration to be shorter just because they are less tired than at the end, so we hypothesize that this is the reason we did not replicate the immersion effect reported by Schatzschneider et al.28. In our design, we controlled for this effect by randomizing the immersion blocks. Whatever the condition with which participants have started or finished the experiment, they estimated the time to be shorter at the beginning of the experiment than at the end (Fig. 3B) with a transient constricting effect of the environment change mid-experiment.

Non-significant results of frequentist tests do not discriminate between absence of evidence and evidence of absence. To test our ability to present evidence in favor of the null hypothesis (no effects of sun movement on time perception) we went beyond the frequentist approach, turned to Bayesian Inference, and conducted Bayesian Repeated ANOVA and separate Bayesian Paired-Sample t-tests for each condition. We first conducted a Bayesian Repeated Measures ANOVA on the data with the experimental conditions [immersion (2) task (2) sun (2)] as within-subjects factors. We used the default prior options for the effects (i.e., r = 0.5 for the fixed effects). To assess the robustness of the result, we also repeat the analysis for two different prior specifications (details in the ''Methods'' section). Analysis of effects indicates moderate to strong evidence for exclusion of immersion (BFexcl = 4.803, where BFexcl is the change from prior to posterior exclusion odds for model-averaged results, our notation follows JASP manual), sun (BFexcl = 16.815), and all interactions between the two. In fact, only the model with a single cognitive load term had BFexcl smaller than 1 (BFexcl = 3.724e13). Post-hoc tests indicated robustness of these findings to prior width (Figs. 4, S2). We can therefore conclude that in our data we can observe moderately strong evidence for no effect of the manipulation of sun or immersion on duration estimation.

Results of the post-hoc Bayesian paired sample t-test between the two levels of sun manipulation. On the left, the effect size as a function of the prior and posterior density. In the middle BF10 as a function of tested prior. On the right, accumulation of evidence towards H0 as a function of the number of samples (participants).

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Cognitive load, fatigue and aversive simulator symptoms but not manipulated zeitgebers affect duration perception in virtual reality | Scientific...

The Joys and Horrors of Virtual Reality in Anime

Weve talked in the past about the intersection of virtual reality and anime, and for good reason. VRand related fields like AR and the concept of a metaversehave long been mainstays of sci-fi and genre fiction. But as these things become more real and accessible, our perception of it changes. And so does animes.

Today, were looking back across the history of VR in anime: the good, the bad, and the in-between. Just like the real world, the virtual world has its share of both good and bad, and anime isnt shy about exploring both.

In the modern age, wed likely classMacross Plus idol Sharon Apple as more of an AR/AI hybrid than virtual reality. But her virtual idol status still holds true. The computerized songstress won the hearts and minds of the localswhich wasnt always a good thing. When her programming went haywire, so did the traditional love geometry of the franchise.

VR and AR have been used to much better (and safer) effect in later iterations ofMacross, including Sheryl and Rankas stunning live shows inMacross Frontier. I guess they learned things stay a lot calmer when the talent is organic.

In 1999,Martian Successor Nadesico andSilent Mbius creator Kia Asamiya asked the ultimate question: What if there were magical girls in virtual reality? The result wasCorrector Yui, an original anime series in which a computer-illiterate teen becomes a magical virus hunter.

Taking place in the year 20XX (yes, really),Corrector Yui posits the existence of ComNet: the VR-based evolution of the Internet. Both ComNet and the real world are under threat from an evil Host computer called Grosser. Eight antivirus programs exist to fight Grosser, but they need someone to command them. And that someone is Yuior rather,Corrector Yui. Her magical girl powers exist only within ComNet, where she leads the eight programs to save the virtual and real worlds.

Hot and fresh from SCIENCE SARU, the team behindDEVILMAN crybabyandKeep Your Hands Off Eizouken!, is a virtual reality series that hits way closer to home. Tom Sawyer Island, the world whereYUREI DECO takes place, feels much more within reach than other anime. Both AR and VR are a part of life here, thanks to either ocular implants or special glasses. The currency is Love: literally, social media likes. The world is colored by AR, and you can dive into one of many hyperverses for work, school, and games. Oh, and a customer service center oversees the whole thing.

WhileYUREI DECO challenges this lifestyle and its resulting drawbackscensorship and ignorance of the plight of others, for exampleit also gives credit to the great things technology gives us. Thanks to the tech of Tom Sawyer Island, the elderly Madam 44 can be an action hero. Extinct animals can be brought back to life in a virtual zoo. AR avatars can let you appear on the outside how you feel on the inside. In short, technology justis: its what you do with it that matters.

Dive into a real-world anime virtual reality for theRe:ZERO -Lost in Memories- anniversary exhibition.

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The Joys and Horrors of Virtual Reality in Anime - Otaku USA Magazine

Image: Optofidelity

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The Buddy test system measures VR and AR headsets with up to six degrees of freedom.

Optofidelity, the Finnish manufacturer of screen measurement systems, developed what is probably one of the nightmare-fueling test platforms ever, Buddy. Attached to a jet-black robotic platform is a (partial) model human head with a proprietary vision module that tests virtual reality headsets and augmented reality glasses.

With a headset placed on the model, two cameras in the artificial skull imitate eyes. An advanced version of the system handles tests in all six degrees of freedom. Buddys best design to date is capable of examining many headset parameters with full freedom of movement.

Numerous axes enable the systems testing versatility. The frame slides sideways on a floor rail, rotates around its axis, and raises and lowers the artificial head. This imitates free movements that real headset users also perform: forward/backward, up/down, left/right, nodding, rolling, and yawing (turning sideways).

The main areas of application are development departments and production lines for VR and AR headsets. Examples include calibration, performance tests, and examining software content. In addition to image quality factors such as sharpness or color fidelity, the tracking systems also find problems such as deviations.

The manufacturer provides information on all VR headsets compatible with the testing system. Optofidelity also describes the setup as relatively uncomplicated. All the necessary components are included. Buddy, therefore, replaces even complex laboratory setups, according to the promotional material.

An important metric is the motion-to-photon latency. It measures the delay between a head movement and its visible implementation in the virtual world. If the latency is too high, the backdrop moves too late, which can cause nausea or a weaker sense of presence.

How stably objects remain anchored in the world or in front of the head can also be checked. Thanks to a novel synchronization technique, modern and future screen technologies should also remain measurable. These include OLED, light field displays, and projection-based screens.

Data sheets on the official website largely focused on previous iterations of the Buddy system with three degrees of freedom (3DOF). This restricted version only moves on a fixed base, instead of also sliding sideways on a rail across the floor.

The motion-to-photo analysis described can be performed here at a frame rate of up to 120 hertz. Simulatable pupil distances range from 55 to 75 millimeters, which also imitates very narrow and wide eye distances.

The official Optofidelity Buddy website lists further technical details, including the Robotics Specifications for fine details such as movement speeds or possible deviations. There, the 3DOF variant can also be examined during a test run with Hololens. Optofidelity provides prices for the Buddy systems on request.

Note: Links to online stores in articles can be so-called affiliate links. If you buy through this link, MIXED receives a commission from the provider. For you the price does not change.

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Robot skull measures VR and AR headsets from any angle - MIXED Reality News

CDC data shows that more than 20% of Americans have chronic pain, with 36% of themhaving high-impact chronic pain.

The discomfort of this pain is arguably exacerbated by the rising prevalence of mental health conditions across the country, which is becoming an increasingly sizable burden on Americans wellbeing. In fact, the percentage of U.S. adults who received mental health treatment rose from 19.2% in 2019 to 21.6% in 2021, according to CDC research released earlier this month.

Experts think virtual reality (VR) can help address both of these public health issues.

The history of VR in healthcare began in 1996 at the University of Washington Harborview Burn Center, where Hunter Hoffman and David Patterson developed a novel technique of using immersive VR for pain management. They were seeking to help burn victims go through debridement, an incredibly painful process in which damaged tissue and foreign objects are removed from burn wounds. Typically, patients receive opioids to help manage their pain throughout these procedures, but Hoffman and Patterson recognized that opioids were only mildly effective and often had terrible side effects.

When the human body experiences pain, a signal goes from the point of injury and lights up brain receptors. Hoffman and Petersons research argued that if the neural pathway is flooded with alternate signals, you can get patients to feel less pain. They measured their tests with both subjective patient-reported outcomes as well as MRIdata, finding that VR was more effective at pain management during debridement than opioids.

They demonstrated that VR could outperform opioids proving the power of a pixel over a molecule, said Matthew Stoudt, co-founder and CEO of AppliedVR. That launched hundreds of studies, all validating that same insight.

AppliedVR, founded in 2015 and based in Van Nuys, California, develops VR solutions designed for low-friction adoption in healthcare. To Stoudt, the reason why Hoffman and Petersons findings havent revolutionized pain management is because technology has long been a limiting factor when it comes to hospitals adoption of VR. At the time of their research, VR technology cost $50,000, weighed 50 pounds and was tethered to 50 machines, so like a lot of innovation in this world, it sat squandering in the laboratory, he said.

Stoudt believes that the healthcare industry is sitting on an entirely new class of medicine, that can greatly improve providers approach to pain management once VR headsets and other portable VR devices are developed and deployed at scale. However, patients are sometimes wary of adopting new technology or straying from the longstanding care methods they have been conditioned to trust, he pointed out. His company is focused on delivering what could potentially seem like a complicated and intimidating device into patients homes in a way that is easy to use, engaging and efficacious.

The first condition that AppliedVR is looking to solve is chronic lower back pain. The company partnered with Beth Darnall, a pain psychologist and director of the Stanford Pain Relief Innovations Lab, to co-develop its eight-week chronic lower back pain management program. This physician-prescribed, self-administered solution allows patients to manage their chronic lower back pain without opioids from the comfort of their own home. AppliedVRs system for chronic lower back pain has received breakthrough device designation and de novo approval from the Food and Drug Administration.

AppliedVR has tested its VR devices at health systems such as Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, UPMC, Geisinger and Cedars-Sinai.

Cedars-Sinai stands out as a health system that is especially supportive of VR adoption. The health system has been using VR in its hospitals for nearly a decade and has treated around 3,500 patients with the technology, according to Dr. Brennan Spiegel, a Cedars-Sinai physician and medical VR researcher. And he thinks more health systems should do the same.

We treat the human body like a machine when people come into a hospital, and in Western medicine in general, and that works pretty well to an extent, he said. But we know that the mind and the body are connected. That is not voodoo science. The fact that the brain and the body communicate is actually well-established neuroscience.

Dr. Spiegel argues that if you can put the brain into a position of comfort, that relaxation will have downstream effects on the rest of the body. This can help reduce heart rate, blood pressure and stress hormone levels, he claimed. This not only helps patients have a more positive experience during their hospital stay, but it can also yield clinical benefits, such as lowering pain scores and reducing the need for pain medications.

Pain medications may reduce the physical experience of pain, but they dont do anything to manage the emotional experience of being in a hospital, or anxiety that comes along with that, Dr. Spiegel said. Hospitals are a very unnatural environment that nobody literally no body was designed to be in.

At Cedars-Sinai, VR use aims to reduce both pain and anxiety scores. When I spoke with Dr. Spiegel, he was in Cedars-Sinais surgical intensive care unit, where VR is deployed every day. Clinicians wheel around a four-wheeled mobile cart that carries VR equipment that can be easily transported and set up from room to room. The cart houses headsets made by HP, which can measure patients biometrics such as heart rate, heart rate variability and pupillometry. These metrics help clinicians assess the physiologic impact of the VR on the patients body.

The health system has created its own VR software, called Nature VR, that allows patients to enter various natural environments so they can reduce anxiety and/or pain through meditation, paced breathing exercises or relaxation of their own accord.

Patients are typically treated with the VR headsets for about 15 minutes. Their baseline pain and anxiety scores are measured both before and after treatment so that clinicians can see whether the patient had a positive response. Most of the time, they do. When that is the case, the headset will stay at the patients bedside so they can then use it throughout the rest of their hospital stay.

In addition to this inpatient program, Cedars-Sinai also had outpatient VR programs in which patients take headsets home to manage things like pain, anxiety or irritable bowel syndrome.

Dr. Spiegel had treated a patient with a VR headset minutes before our call. He said that patient was appreciative of the treatment, notingthat it allowed him to get away from the less-than-comfortable environment he was in and enter a calm, relaxed space.

Having the option to momentarily escape the hospital environment can do a lot to improve the inpatient experience. Solomon Rogers, the director of global innovation at Magnopus, is another strong supporter of this thesis.

Rogers company is atechnology studio based in Los Angeles and London that has created VR projects for numerous films and television shows. Now, its exploring applications in the healthcare space. One of Magnopus biggest healthcare partners, Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, piloted its VR technology in 2019 to help pediatric patients escape reality for a short while.

There was a patient who was bedridden, who couldnt move from their back, he said. We enabled virtual reality technology to bring in an experience in which that patient could become an astronaut. Without needing to sit up and move, they were able to climb around the space station and be free of the bounds of the bed, all while being able to look down back on Earth.

Not only does momentarily freeing pediatric hospital patients from their reality improve their mental wellbeing, it has also been shown to marginally improve the speed of their rehabilitation, according to Rogers.

Magnopus has also deployed VR technology to alleviate anxiety in pediatric patients parents. Through a partnership with the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London, Magnopus developed technology to lower families anxiety before a childs hospital stay through the use of 360-degree hospital VR tours. Immersing the patient and their family into the world of the hospital before they ever enter the building helps them enter their stay with less unknowns, and therefore more comfort, according to Rogers.

Its well-known that hospitals use VR for surgical training, but there are so many other ways it can be applied in healthcare, he said.

Photo: LightFieldStudios, Getty Images

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Why VR could be the new dawn of pain, anxiety management - MedCity News

The future of streaming may be unfolding before our eyes on Disney+. Disney recently released Remembering, a short film starring Bree Larson, as part of Disney+ Day on Sept. 8. In the film, Larson plays an author who teams up with her own inner child to recover a lost idea that will aid her in a story she is attempting to write.

The short film itself is not so revolutionary, but the augmented reality features embedded in the film represent a new foray into VR for streaming companies. By downloading a special app, scanning a QR code, and playing the film on a TV, viewers can bring a whimsical fantasy world to life in their own living room. The AR features are only available via a free iOS app, so Android users are currently out of luck when it comes to altered reality streaming.

With a first-of-its-kind companion Augmented Reality app, where the AR experience is triggered by the films moving image, select Disney+ subscribers in the U.S. can interact with the story by scanning the TV to extend The World of Imagination into their living room, said Disney regarding the films release.

The foray into virtual reality is likely just a first step for Disney, in order to test the viability of the product and get consumer feedback. If it proves successful, expect Disney to roll out AR shows and movies on a variety of different platforms and devices, not just iOS.

Indeed, more augmented reality content is a big part of Disneys future plans for Disney+. Disney CEO Bob Chapek said that the company wants to launch what it calls Next-Gen Storytelling on its streaming platform. Next-Gen Storytelling will provide a more interactive streaming experience that will not only include movies and shows, but give subscribers the chance to enjoy virtual experiences like Disney rides that were previously only accessible by visiting a Disney park in person.

Disney+ will not just be a movie-service platform, but its going to become an experiential lifestyle platform, Chapek said. A platform for the whole company to embody both the physical things that you might be able to experience in a theme park, but also the digital experiences that you can get through media.

If test cases like Remembering prove successful, expect to see more augmented reality content hitting Disney+ very soon.

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Disney Releases First AR Short Film; Is Virtual Reality the Future of Streaming at Disney+? - The Streamable