Immersive Interaction Research Group

Our researches focus on embodied interactions, i.e. involving users through full-body movements to achieve new classes of tasks or activities not feasible with traditional human-computer interfaces. It can be employed for training and rehabilitation or for the evaluation of potentially complex environments. We also aim to better understand and mitigate cybersickness as it is still seriously hampering XR adoption. In collaboration with EPFL-LNCO we conduct experiments to assess the human embodiment sensitivity to various factors so that we can propose human-centered algorithms for full-body interaction. Independently we also investigated how to impersonate a full range of 3D characters (performance animation). Finally, our Know-how in human posture control has been used for proposing new 3D sketching tools for animators.
February 2023 : our three most recent journal papers become visible in Open Access:
- PLOS-One “Avatar error in your favor: Embodied avatars can fix users’ mistakes without them noticing“. Through this controlled experiment, we showed an interesting asymmetry in embodied users behavior, i.e. that we notice much less when our avatar fix our mistake than when they introducing one.
- Frontiers in Virtual Reality and Human Behavior “Unintentional synchronization with self-avatar for upper- and lower-body movements”. In this study we introduce a methodology to demonstrate that the scope of the “follower-effect” extends to the full body.
- Virtual Reality “A review of cybersickness in head-mounted displays: raising attention to individual susceptibility“. This review paper surveys the research published within the last six years. It analyzes five contributing factors to cybersickness and stresses the importance of individual susceptibility.
January 2023: the collaboration with UNIL on fostering interactive methods for learning french resulted in April 2022 with a new tool designed within the EPFL-IN Master Thesis of Peter Krcmar (page in french), further enriched by Camille Montemagni during her Fall 2022 semester project .
November 10-12th 2021: The ACM conference Motion Interaction and Games ‘2021 attracted 217 online attendees. The presentation videos are now visible on the program page and on YouTube, including the keynotes from ROBLOX and Epic Games.
June 12th 2020 webinar: Embodied interaction in Immersive VR