Research Questions

Since no one knows how the new immersive and mixed physical digital experiences will feel when they become prolonged and pervasive, we think of SPaCE as an environment for generating first glimpses of such experiences and for tackling some of the attendant questions:

The Visible and the Invisible

  • How to make the sequential experiences by an individual walking in a virtual world similar or usefully dissimilar to those in the physical world?
  • We explore the similarity and dissimilarity of experiences by varying the amount and quality of the sensory information that comes in and out of the perceptible range along the path of movement.

Continuity of Experience in Solid Space

  • How to link the experiences that arise from different sections of the immersive narrative (akin to cinematic “shots”)?
  • This important question arises because cinematic “cuts” do not readily translate to immersive worlds (see Solid Cut).

Segregation of Presentational Modes

  • How to partition the new forms of spatial experience using different presentational modes: physical, digital, and mixed:
    • while the person is moving between the spatial zones created by the different presentational modes?
    • while the objects manipulated by the person traverse boundaries between these modes?
  • How does the experience change when the person is being moved (rather than is moving actively) as in autonomous vehicles or simulations of teleporting?

Kinds of Minds

  • How do children behave in immersive worlds?
  • How can the lives of individuals from special populations be facilitated by immersive technologies?

Longevity

  • For how long do adults and children like to be immersed in the different presentational modes?
  • For how long the notions established in an immersive world linger after the immersive device is removed?

Immersive Sociality

  • How to defeat the sense of isolation often experienced by the immersed individuals?
  • How realistic should the representation of the Other be in order to translate the many shades of social attachment from the physical world to the virtual and mixed worlds?