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Ayush Bhargava

Clemson University, School Of Computing, Graduate Student

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Harvard University

Joel Greenstein

Patricia Commiskey

Victoria Mitrani

University of Miami School of Medicine

David Loewenstein

University of Miami

Michael Silverman

University of California, San Diego

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Papers by Ayush Bhargava

An Investigation of the Information Sought by Caregivers of Alzheimer's Patients on Online Peer Support Groups

Cyberpsychology, behavior and social networking, 2017

Caregivers of Alzheimer's patients find respite in online communities for solutions and emoti... more Caregivers of Alzheimer's patients find respite in online communities for solutions and emotional support. This study aims to understand the characteristics of information caregivers of Alzheimer's patients are searching for and the kind of support they receive through Internet-based peer support communities. Using a Web crawler written in Python Web programming language, we retrieved publicly available 2,500 random posts and their respective solutions from April 2012 to October 2016 on the solutions category of the Caregiver's Forum on ALZConnected.org . A content analysis was conducted on these randomly selected posts and 4,219 responses to those posts based on a classification system were derived from initial analyses of 750 posts and related responses. The results showed most posts (26%) related to queries about Alzheimer's symptoms, and the highest percentage of responses (45.56%) pertained to caregiver well-being. The LIWC analyses generated an average tone rat...

Editorial: The light and dark sides of virtual reality

Frontiers in virtual reality, Apr 26, 2023

Can I Squeeze Through? Effects of Self-Avatars and Calibration in a Person-Plus-Virtual-Object System on Perceived Lateral Passability in VR

IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics

Can I Squeeze Through? Effects of Self-Avatars and Calibration in a Person-Plus-Virtual-Object System on Perceived Lateral Passability in VR

IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics

Comparative Evaluation of the Effects of Motion Control on Cybersickness in Immersive Virtual Environments

2020 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (VR), 2020

The commercialization and lowering costs of consumer grade Virtual Reality (VR) devices has made ... more The commercialization and lowering costs of consumer grade Virtual Reality (VR) devices has made the technology increasingly accessible to users around the world. The usage of VR technology is often accompanied by an undesirable side effect called cybersickness. Cyber-sickness is the feeling of discomfort that occurs during VR experiences, producing symptoms similar to those of motion sickness. It continues to remain one of the biggest hurdles to the widespread adoption of VR, making it increasingly important to explore and understand the factors that influence its onset. In this work, we investigated the influence of the presence/absence of motion control on the onset and severity of cybersickness in an HMD based VR driving simulation employing steering as a travel metaphor. Towards this end, we conducted a between subjects study manipulating the presence of control between three experimental conditions, two of which (Driving condition and Yoked Pair condition) formed a yoked contr...

The Effect of Anthropometric Properties of Self-Avatars on Action Capabilities in Virtual Reality

The field of Virtual Reality (VR) has seen a steady exponential uptake in the last decade and is ... more The field of Virtual Reality (VR) has seen a steady exponential uptake in the last decade and is being continuously incorporated into areas of popular interest like healthcare, training, recreation and gaming. This steady upward trend and prolonged popularity has resulted in numerous extravagant virtual environments, some that aim to mimic real-life experiences like combat training, while others intend to provide unique experiences that may otherwise be difficult to recreate like flying over ancient Egypt as a bird. These experiences often showcase highly realistic graphics, intuitive interactions and unique avatar embodiment scenarios with the help of various tracking sensors, high definition graphic displays, sound systems, etc. The literature suggests that estimates and affordance judgments in VR scenarios such as the ones described above are affected by the properties and the nature of the avatar embodied by the user. Therefore, to provide users with the finest experiences it is...

Did I Hit the Door Effects of Self-Avatars and Calibration in a Person-Plus-Virtual-Object System on Perceived Frontal Passability in VR

The availability of new and improved display, tracking and input devices for Virtual Reality expe... more The availability of new and improved display, tracking and input devices for Virtual Reality experiences has facilitated the use of partial and full body self-avatars in interaction with virtual objects in the environment. However, scaling the avatar to match the user's body dimensions remains to be a cumbersome process. Moreover, the effect of body-scaled self-avatars on size perception of virtual handheld objects and related action capabilities has been relatively unexplored. To this end, we present an empirical evaluation investigating the effect of the presence or absence of body-scaled self-avatars and visuo-motor calibration on frontal passability affordance judgments when interacting with virtual handheld objects. The self-avatar's dimensions were scaled to match the participant's eyeheight, arms length, shoulder width and body depth along the mid section. The results indicate that the presence of body-scaled self-avatars produce more realistic judgments of passab...

Towards Revisiting Passability Judgments in Real and Immersive Virtual Environments

Every task we perform in our day-to-day lives requires us to make judgements about size, distance... more Every task we perform in our day-to-day lives requires us to make judgements about size, distance, depth, etc. The same is true for tasks in an immersive virtual environments (IVE). Increasingly, Virtual Reality (VR) applications are being developed for training and entertainment, many of which require the user to determining whether s/he can pass through an opening. Typically, people determine their ability to pass through an aperture by comparing the width of their shoulders to the width of the opening. Thus, judgments of size and distance in an IVE are necessary for accurate judgments of passability. In this experiment, we empirically evaluate how passability judgments in an IVE, viewed through a Head-Mounted Display (HMD), compare to judgments made in the real world. An exact to scale virtual replica of the room and apparatus was used for the VR condition. Results indicate that the accuracy of passability judgments seem to be comparable to the real world.

PPCards: Toward Enhancing Electronic Prototyping with Editions of a Card-based Platform

Prototyping electronic circuits is often facilitated by web-based tutorials and breadboards. Seve... more Prototyping electronic circuits is often facilitated by web-based tutorials and breadboards. Several virtual and hybrid platforms do exist, each carrying their own limitations. Some of these platforms fall prey to split-attention effects, wherein users are required to split their attention to integrate multiple sources of spatially separated information. This hinders the learning and prototyping processes. Other platforms provide a single source of information, but lack tangible interaction with electronic components or suffer from the absence of active feedback which can also hinder these processes. There is hence a need for prototyping platforms that mitigate split attention effects, while continuing to provide other desirable aspects such as tangible interaction. To address this, we present three editions of PPCards, a card-based platform for prototyping electronic circuits, towards overcoming limitations of existing paradigms. Through a comparative study, it was determined that ...

Towards Evaluating the Effects of Stereoscopic Viewing and Haptic Interaction on Perception-Action Coordination

We target the problem of providing 5G network connectivity in rural zones by means of Base Statio... more We target the problem of providing 5G network connectivity in rural zones by means of Base Stations (BSs) carried by Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). Our goal is to schedule the UAVs missions to: i) limit the amount of energy consumed by each UAV, ii) ensure the coverage of selected zones over the territory, ii) decide where and when each UAV has to be recharged in a ground site, iii) deal with the amount of energy provided by Solar Panels (SPs) and batteries installed in each ground site. We then formulate the RURALPLAN optimization problem, a variant of the unsplittable multicommodity flow problem defined on a multiperiod graph. After detailing the objective function and the constraints, we solve RURALPLAN in a realistic scenario. Results show that RURALPLAN is able to outperform a solution ensuring coverage but not considering the energy management of the UAVs.

The effects of testing environment, experimental design, and ankle loading on calibration to perturbed optic flow during locomotion

Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics

Calibration is the process by which the execution of actions becomes scaled to the (changing) rel... more Calibration is the process by which the execution of actions becomes scaled to the (changing) relationship between environmental features and the actor's action capabilities. Though much research has investigated how individuals calibrate to perturbed optic flow, it remains unclear how different experimental factors contribute to the magnitude of calibration transfer. In the present study, we assessed how testing environment (Experiment 1), an adapted pretest-calibration-posttest design (Experiment 2), and bilateral ankle loading (Experiment 3) affected the magnitude of calibration to perturbed optic flow. We found that calibration transferred analogously to real-world and virtual environments. Although the magnitude of calibration transfer found here was greater than that reported by previous researchers, it was evident that calibration occurred rapidly and quickly plateaued, further supporting the claim that calibration is often incomplete despite continued calibration trials. We also saw an asymmetry in calibration magnitude, which may be due to a lack of appropriate perceptual-motor scaling prior to calibration. The implications of these findings for the assessment of distance perception and calibration in real-world and virtual environments are discussed.

Empirically Evaluating the Effects of Perceptual Information Channels on the Size Perception of Tangibles in Near-Field Virtual Reality

2021 IEEE Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (VR)

Immersive Virtual Environments (IVEs) incorporating tangibles are becoming more accessible. The s... more Immersive Virtual Environments (IVEs) incorporating tangibles are becoming more accessible. The success of applications combining 3D printed tangibles and VR often depends on how accurately size is perceived. Research has shown that visuo-haptic perceptual information is important in the perception of size. However, it is unclear how these sensory-perceptual channels are affected by immersive virtual environments that incorporate tangible objects. Towards understanding the effects of different sensory information channels in the near field size perception of tangibles of graspable sizes in IVEs, we conducted a between-subjects study evaluating the accuracy of size perception across three experimental conditions (Vision-only, Haptics-only, Vision and Haptics). We found that overall, participants consistently over-estimated the size of the dials regardless of the type of perceptual information that was presented. Participants in the haptics only condition overestimated diameters to a larger degree as compared to other conditions. Participants were most accurate in the vision only condition and least accurate in the haptics only condition. Our results also revealed that increased efficiency in reporting size over time was most pronounced in the visuo- haptic condition.

Tangibles within VR : Tracking , Augmenting , and Combining Fabricated and Commercially Available Commodity Devices

Virtual Reality (VR) continues to provide an excellent alternative for users to experience divers... more Virtual Reality (VR) continues to provide an excellent alternative for users to experience diverse environments from the comfort of their home. The higher the level of immersion, the better the experience. However, the devices one can use to interact with objects in such environments are often restrictive and provide the same generic tactile feedback for contrasting objects, which may adversely affect immersion. One way to address this challenge is to use tangibles. Tangibles combined with tracking devices can provide alternative ways to increase immersion and catered tactile feedback. In this tutorial, we present simplified strategies that can be adopted to incorporate 3D printed and commercially available tangibles into VR applications using multi-touch displays and HTC Vive trackers. We showcase 3D printed prototypes that can be augmented with tangibles and trackers to interact in virtual environments. We also discuss multiple approaches that can reduce complexity further and hel...

Comparative Evaluation of Viewing and Self-Representation on Passability Affordances to a Realistic Sliding Doorway in Real and Immersive Virtual Environments

2020 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (VR)

Towards an Immersive Driving Simulator to Study Factors Related to Cybersickness

2019 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (VR)

Perceptions of Passability Through Dynamically Moving Gaps

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting

Transfer of Calibration in Virtual Reality to both Real and Virtual Environments

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting

It is often questioned whether task performance attained in a virtual environment can be transfer... more It is often questioned whether task performance attained in a virtual environment can be transferred appropriately and accurately to the same task in the real world. With advancements in virtual reality (VR) technology, recent research has focused on individuals’ abilities to transfer calibration achieved in a virtual environment to a real-world environment. Little research, however, has shown whether transfer of calibration from a virtual environment to the real world is similar to transfer of calibration from a virtual environment to another virtual environment. As such, the present study investigated differences in calibration transfer to real-world and virtual environments. In either a real-world or virtual environment, participants completed blind walking estimates before and after experiencing perturbed virtual optic flow via a head-mounted virtual display (HMD). Results showed that individuals calibrated to perturbed virtual optic flow and that this calibration carried over t...

Revisiting affordance perception in contemporary virtual reality

Virtual Reality

Predictability and Variability of a Dynamic Environment Impact Affordance Judgments

Ecological Psychology

Comparative Evaluation of User Perceived Quality Assessment of Design Strategies for HTTP-based Adaptive Streaming

ACM Transactions on Applied Perception

An Investigation of the Information Sought by Caregivers of Alzheimer's Patients on Online Peer Support Groups

Cyberpsychology, behavior and social networking, 2017

Caregivers of Alzheimer's patients find respite in online communities for solutions and emoti... more Caregivers of Alzheimer's patients find respite in online communities for solutions and emotional support. This study aims to understand the characteristics of information caregivers of Alzheimer's patients are searching for and the kind of support they receive through Internet-based peer support communities. Using a Web crawler written in Python Web programming language, we retrieved publicly available 2,500 random posts and their respective solutions from April 2012 to October 2016 on the solutions category of the Caregiver's Forum on ALZConnected.org . A content analysis was conducted on these randomly selected posts and 4,219 responses to those posts based on a classification system were derived from initial analyses of 750 posts and related responses. The results showed most posts (26%) related to queries about Alzheimer's symptoms, and the highest percentage of responses (45.56%) pertained to caregiver well-being. The LIWC analyses generated an average tone rat...

Editorial: The light and dark sides of virtual reality

Frontiers in virtual reality, Apr 26, 2023

Can I Squeeze Through? Effects of Self-Avatars and Calibration in a Person-Plus-Virtual-Object System on Perceived Lateral Passability in VR

IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics

Can I Squeeze Through? Effects of Self-Avatars and Calibration in a Person-Plus-Virtual-Object System on Perceived Lateral Passability in VR

IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics

Comparative Evaluation of the Effects of Motion Control on Cybersickness in Immersive Virtual Environments

2020 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (VR), 2020

The commercialization and lowering costs of consumer grade Virtual Reality (VR) devices has made ... more The commercialization and lowering costs of consumer grade Virtual Reality (VR) devices has made the technology increasingly accessible to users around the world. The usage of VR technology is often accompanied by an undesirable side effect called cybersickness. Cyber-sickness is the feeling of discomfort that occurs during VR experiences, producing symptoms similar to those of motion sickness. It continues to remain one of the biggest hurdles to the widespread adoption of VR, making it increasingly important to explore and understand the factors that influence its onset. In this work, we investigated the influence of the presence/absence of motion control on the onset and severity of cybersickness in an HMD based VR driving simulation employing steering as a travel metaphor. Towards this end, we conducted a between subjects study manipulating the presence of control between three experimental conditions, two of which (Driving condition and Yoked Pair condition) formed a yoked contr...

The Effect of Anthropometric Properties of Self-Avatars on Action Capabilities in Virtual Reality

The field of Virtual Reality (VR) has seen a steady exponential uptake in the last decade and is ... more The field of Virtual Reality (VR) has seen a steady exponential uptake in the last decade and is being continuously incorporated into areas of popular interest like healthcare, training, recreation and gaming. This steady upward trend and prolonged popularity has resulted in numerous extravagant virtual environments, some that aim to mimic real-life experiences like combat training, while others intend to provide unique experiences that may otherwise be difficult to recreate like flying over ancient Egypt as a bird. These experiences often showcase highly realistic graphics, intuitive interactions and unique avatar embodiment scenarios with the help of various tracking sensors, high definition graphic displays, sound systems, etc. The literature suggests that estimates and affordance judgments in VR scenarios such as the ones described above are affected by the properties and the nature of the avatar embodied by the user. Therefore, to provide users with the finest experiences it is...

Did I Hit the Door Effects of Self-Avatars and Calibration in a Person-Plus-Virtual-Object System on Perceived Frontal Passability in VR

The availability of new and improved display, tracking and input devices for Virtual Reality expe... more The availability of new and improved display, tracking and input devices for Virtual Reality experiences has facilitated the use of partial and full body self-avatars in interaction with virtual objects in the environment. However, scaling the avatar to match the user's body dimensions remains to be a cumbersome process. Moreover, the effect of body-scaled self-avatars on size perception of virtual handheld objects and related action capabilities has been relatively unexplored. To this end, we present an empirical evaluation investigating the effect of the presence or absence of body-scaled self-avatars and visuo-motor calibration on frontal passability affordance judgments when interacting with virtual handheld objects. The self-avatar's dimensions were scaled to match the participant's eyeheight, arms length, shoulder width and body depth along the mid section. The results indicate that the presence of body-scaled self-avatars produce more realistic judgments of passab...

Towards Revisiting Passability Judgments in Real and Immersive Virtual Environments

Every task we perform in our day-to-day lives requires us to make judgements about size, distance... more Every task we perform in our day-to-day lives requires us to make judgements about size, distance, depth, etc. The same is true for tasks in an immersive virtual environments (IVE). Increasingly, Virtual Reality (VR) applications are being developed for training and entertainment, many of which require the user to determining whether s/he can pass through an opening. Typically, people determine their ability to pass through an aperture by comparing the width of their shoulders to the width of the opening. Thus, judgments of size and distance in an IVE are necessary for accurate judgments of passability. In this experiment, we empirically evaluate how passability judgments in an IVE, viewed through a Head-Mounted Display (HMD), compare to judgments made in the real world. An exact to scale virtual replica of the room and apparatus was used for the VR condition. Results indicate that the accuracy of passability judgments seem to be comparable to the real world.

PPCards: Toward Enhancing Electronic Prototyping with Editions of a Card-based Platform

Prototyping electronic circuits is often facilitated by web-based tutorials and breadboards. Seve... more Prototyping electronic circuits is often facilitated by web-based tutorials and breadboards. Several virtual and hybrid platforms do exist, each carrying their own limitations. Some of these platforms fall prey to split-attention effects, wherein users are required to split their attention to integrate multiple sources of spatially separated information. This hinders the learning and prototyping processes. Other platforms provide a single source of information, but lack tangible interaction with electronic components or suffer from the absence of active feedback which can also hinder these processes. There is hence a need for prototyping platforms that mitigate split attention effects, while continuing to provide other desirable aspects such as tangible interaction. To address this, we present three editions of PPCards, a card-based platform for prototyping electronic circuits, towards overcoming limitations of existing paradigms. Through a comparative study, it was determined that ...

Towards Evaluating the Effects of Stereoscopic Viewing and Haptic Interaction on Perception-Action Coordination

We target the problem of providing 5G network connectivity in rural zones by means of Base Statio... more We target the problem of providing 5G network connectivity in rural zones by means of Base Stations (BSs) carried by Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). Our goal is to schedule the UAVs missions to: i) limit the amount of energy consumed by each UAV, ii) ensure the coverage of selected zones over the territory, ii) decide where and when each UAV has to be recharged in a ground site, iii) deal with the amount of energy provided by Solar Panels (SPs) and batteries installed in each ground site. We then formulate the RURALPLAN optimization problem, a variant of the unsplittable multicommodity flow problem defined on a multiperiod graph. After detailing the objective function and the constraints, we solve RURALPLAN in a realistic scenario. Results show that RURALPLAN is able to outperform a solution ensuring coverage but not considering the energy management of the UAVs.

The effects of testing environment, experimental design, and ankle loading on calibration to perturbed optic flow during locomotion

Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics

Calibration is the process by which the execution of actions becomes scaled to the (changing) rel... more Calibration is the process by which the execution of actions becomes scaled to the (changing) relationship between environmental features and the actor's action capabilities. Though much research has investigated how individuals calibrate to perturbed optic flow, it remains unclear how different experimental factors contribute to the magnitude of calibration transfer. In the present study, we assessed how testing environment (Experiment 1), an adapted pretest-calibration-posttest design (Experiment 2), and bilateral ankle loading (Experiment 3) affected the magnitude of calibration to perturbed optic flow. We found that calibration transferred analogously to real-world and virtual environments. Although the magnitude of calibration transfer found here was greater than that reported by previous researchers, it was evident that calibration occurred rapidly and quickly plateaued, further supporting the claim that calibration is often incomplete despite continued calibration trials. We also saw an asymmetry in calibration magnitude, which may be due to a lack of appropriate perceptual-motor scaling prior to calibration. The implications of these findings for the assessment of distance perception and calibration in real-world and virtual environments are discussed.

Empirically Evaluating the Effects of Perceptual Information Channels on the Size Perception of Tangibles in Near-Field Virtual Reality

2021 IEEE Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (VR)

Immersive Virtual Environments (IVEs) incorporating tangibles are becoming more accessible. The s... more Immersive Virtual Environments (IVEs) incorporating tangibles are becoming more accessible. The success of applications combining 3D printed tangibles and VR often depends on how accurately size is perceived. Research has shown that visuo-haptic perceptual information is important in the perception of size. However, it is unclear how these sensory-perceptual channels are affected by immersive virtual environments that incorporate tangible objects. Towards understanding the effects of different sensory information channels in the near field size perception of tangibles of graspable sizes in IVEs, we conducted a between-subjects study evaluating the accuracy of size perception across three experimental conditions (Vision-only, Haptics-only, Vision and Haptics). We found that overall, participants consistently over-estimated the size of the dials regardless of the type of perceptual information that was presented. Participants in the haptics only condition overestimated diameters to a larger degree as compared to other conditions. Participants were most accurate in the vision only condition and least accurate in the haptics only condition. Our results also revealed that increased efficiency in reporting size over time was most pronounced in the visuo- haptic condition.

Tangibles within VR : Tracking , Augmenting , and Combining Fabricated and Commercially Available Commodity Devices

Virtual Reality (VR) continues to provide an excellent alternative for users to experience divers... more Virtual Reality (VR) continues to provide an excellent alternative for users to experience diverse environments from the comfort of their home. The higher the level of immersion, the better the experience. However, the devices one can use to interact with objects in such environments are often restrictive and provide the same generic tactile feedback for contrasting objects, which may adversely affect immersion. One way to address this challenge is to use tangibles. Tangibles combined with tracking devices can provide alternative ways to increase immersion and catered tactile feedback. In this tutorial, we present simplified strategies that can be adopted to incorporate 3D printed and commercially available tangibles into VR applications using multi-touch displays and HTC Vive trackers. We showcase 3D printed prototypes that can be augmented with tangibles and trackers to interact in virtual environments. We also discuss multiple approaches that can reduce complexity further and hel...

Comparative Evaluation of Viewing and Self-Representation on Passability Affordances to a Realistic Sliding Doorway in Real and Immersive Virtual Environments

2020 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (VR)

Towards an Immersive Driving Simulator to Study Factors Related to Cybersickness

2019 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (VR)

Perceptions of Passability Through Dynamically Moving Gaps

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting

Transfer of Calibration in Virtual Reality to both Real and Virtual Environments

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting

It is often questioned whether task performance attained in a virtual environment can be transfer... more It is often questioned whether task performance attained in a virtual environment can be transferred appropriately and accurately to the same task in the real world. With advancements in virtual reality (VR) technology, recent research has focused on individuals’ abilities to transfer calibration achieved in a virtual environment to a real-world environment. Little research, however, has shown whether transfer of calibration from a virtual environment to the real world is similar to transfer of calibration from a virtual environment to another virtual environment. As such, the present study investigated differences in calibration transfer to real-world and virtual environments. In either a real-world or virtual environment, participants completed blind walking estimates before and after experiencing perturbed virtual optic flow via a head-mounted virtual display (HMD). Results showed that individuals calibrated to perturbed virtual optic flow and that this calibration carried over t...

Revisiting affordance perception in contemporary virtual reality

Virtual Reality

Predictability and Variability of a Dynamic Environment Impact Affordance Judgments

Ecological Psychology

Comparative Evaluation of User Perceived Quality Assessment of Design Strategies for HTTP-based Adaptive Streaming

ACM Transactions on Applied Perception