Learning how we build reality from unreal worlds

Dr. Mel Slater is a born researcher. Nowadays he enjoys an ICREA contract that allows him to spend his full time researching, his big passion. Mel studied computer science in the University of London. It was in this same University where Mel obtained his DSc and where he was as a researcher. He was Head of Department of Computer Science at Queen Mary College, University of London, for a while; however his hunger for discovering new worlds took him to give up the Head position, to become a Professor at University College London, for a few years and then later to apply for an ICREA contract.

He is currently working at the LSI department at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC) in Barcelona. However he has not lost contact with his PhD students and his research group in London.

Dr. Slater works with mixed groups consisting of computer scientists, psychologist and neuroscientists. His main goal is to understand how and why people react in front of virtual reality as if it were real, in order to find out how to Computer Engineers build up the entire virtual infrastructure. These infrastructures are the technical support for several experiments with real human people. Such experimentation is interesting for two reasons. On one hand, they provide a lot of information to psychologists and neurologist. On the other hand, computer engineers can learn how to improve their systems.

Mel is interested in knowing what it is that works for people and what does not, what makes us connect with an unreal world such as a virtual one. He explained to us that the last experiment they did was about danger. It consisted in the analysis of people's behaviour in a dangerous situation. The scenario was a bar where there were some virtual people playing music and dancing. Inside the bar a fire breaks outs. How do people react in front of these flames? Oddly enough people's reaction depends on the reaction of the virtual people who are there. The real humans reacted with stress and wanted to run out when the virtual characters did not ignore the situation and when they reacted with panic, running out or trying to extinguish the fire. Our fellow human's reactions, real or virtual, are what make us feel. It is curious how the tendency is to act in the same way you would do in a real fire with real frightened people. The volunteers, who participate in these experiments, know obviously, that everything they are seeing is not real; however they are not able to control their bodies' reactions.

Mel Slater leads in four big projects, three European ones and one funded by La Marató TV3.
In this project, a fourteen partner research group equally distributed between computer scientists and neuroscientists research the presence in virtual reality. They are trying to understand how and why people respond to virtual environments as if what they were experiencing were real. In order to recreate the different situations with more truthfulness they use a very large screen and some devices installed in a helmet. These devices allow us to have a wider field of view for vision, about 140º, than the ones used in the past which allowed around 45º-60º.

From the scientific understanding of what are the reasons to react realistically in a certain situation, virtual reality researchers can learn improve their virtual reality hardware and software systems. Understanding the science we build better systems. Experiments such as Analysing behaviour situations of danger are part of this project. For the last months they have been working on new scenarios to analyse new situations concerned with the issue of our personal body representation.
They work with the sense of touch this time. Although the focal point is the sense of touch, forces and haptics, IMMERSENCE has a similar philosophy to PRESENCCIA.

This initiative was born two years ago as part of the European 6th framework. It is an integrated project. They work with other Universities such as: the Technical University of Munich and the Polytechnic University of Madrid. They are one of the most experienced groups in the field of virtual reality experiments with real volunteers which is why they help to design experiments at the partner Universities as well as at UPC.

We are familiarized with optical illusions. Is what we see real?. Everybody would say not exactly. Who has not had the experience of seeing water on a dry road? Who has not seen paintings that play with our intellect? Who has seen the TV flashes? or who has not perceived something wrongly at least once?... However we believe that if we touch something that fact confirms reality, it makes it touchable. We do not know that our brain also plays with the sense of touch. Tactile illusions exist as well. If our eyes see an object and we get closer to touch it, our brain will start sending stimulus before the actual contact is produced. Our brains works as an illusionary haptic. One of IMMERSENCE's goals at UPC is to deeply understand this phenomenon.
MIMICS works on a more therapeutic side of the virtual reality. When someone has a stroke, for example, physiotherapists try to make them exercise the effected limb in order to regain some of the lost mobility and to generate new brain connections. Such a task can mean an ordeal for the patient. Being forced to carry out walking motions a lot can be very boring and dangerous. Why not walking in a virtual environment with an unreal trainer?
 
MIMICS has introduced three different kind of environments with three different answers by the patients. The first one is a countryside that entertains the user; however after a while this environment becomes also monotonous. If this created environment has streets and buildings...etc, the complexity increases interest. Even more, if we include virtual people who talk and who guides the experience, the results could be even better.

This is a novel initiative. ETH Zurich leads the project in which UPC has a substantial share of the funding. The ultimate goal is a new form of therapy available for the health service.

This initiative is leaded by the Psychology Department at the University of Barcelona. Maria Victòria Sànchez Vives, is one of the neuroscientists who work in this project from the Hospital Clinic (Barcelona), IDIBAPS, and there are also participants from the Psychology Department of Universidad of València.

Again, this project is about social and health applications. The main goal of this project is to help people with chronic pain. The main goal of La Marató 2006 was dealing with chronical pain. Now, Mel Slater and his team are researching ideas that may help people with chronical pain thanks to the TV3 Marató grant. If someone wants to achieve a new challenge it is good that this person imagines him or herself achieving it, as we can learn that through yoga, for example. Following everything we have learnt and using virtual reality we have the idea of healthy body representations. If our brain sees ourselves having a healthier body, its perception of comfort may improve, new neural connections may appear and the pain perception may decreases.

Finally, apart from these four big projects, Mel Slater and his research group are also collaborating with Austrian Company g.tec. G.tec specialises in bio signal analysis. In this case they work with electrodes that capture the electromagnetic waves generated by someone's brain and understand the information that is hidden inside them. Thanks to this technique, disable people would be able to have a "normal" life in a virtual plane, for example moving only by thinking about it. They have developed a virtual Smart House. Someone who has no mobility can turn on the radio in such a house by having the appropriate thoughts. The virtual prototype of a Smart House allows people to realise their wishes through thought alone.

Mel Slater's group is called Experimental Virtual Environments for Neuroscience and Technology-the EVENT Lab (www.event-lab.org).


ilapuente@lsi.upc.edu