Advances in audiovisual rendering have led to the commercialization of virtual reality (VR); however, haptic technology has not kept up with these advances. While a variety of robotic systems aim to address this gap by simulating the sensation of touch, many hardware limitations make realistic touch interactions in VR challenging. In my research, I explore how, by understanding human perception through the lens of sensorimotor control theory, we can design interactions that not only overcome the current limitations of robotic hardware for VR but also extend our abilities beyond what is possible in the physical world.
In the first part of this talk, I will present my work on redirection illusions that leverage the limits of human perception to improve the perceived performance of encountered-type haptic devices in VR, such as the position accuracy of drones and the resolution of shape displays. In the second part, I will share how we apply these illusory interactions to physical spaces and use augmented reality (AR) to facilitate situated and bidirectional human-robot communication, bridging users’ mental models and robotic representations.
Bio: Parastoo Abtahi is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Princeton University. She leads Princeton’s Situated Interactions Lab (Ψ Lab), which explores virtual and augmented reality interactions grounded in human perception and cognition. Before joining Princeton, Parastoo was a visiting research scientist at Meta Reality Labs Research. She received her PhD in Computer Science from Stanford University, where she was a Gerald J. Lieberman Fellow, and her bachelor’s degree in Engineering Science and Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Toronto. Parastoo’s work has been recognized with a Google Research Scholar Award and best paper and honorable mention awards at top human-computer interaction venues, such as ACM CHI and UIST.
The seminar will be followed by a lunch with the speaker in the F-wing space.