EVENT Lab - Universitat de Barcelona Facultat de Psicologia, Departament de Personalitat, Avaluació i Tractaments Psicològics, Campus de Mundet - Edifici Teatre, Passeig de la Vall d'Hebron 171, 08035 Barcelona Spain http://www.event-lab.org Phone: +34 93 403 1114
PhD student in the EVENT-Lab at UB, under Mel Slater's direction FI-DGR 2011 fellowship given by the Generalitat de Catalunya (CUR-Gencat) co-founded by the European Commission (EC-ESF).
Abstract: Co-adaptation between the human brain and computers is an important issue in brain-computer interface (BCI) research. However, most of the research has focused on the computer side of BCI, such as developing powerful machine-learning algorithms, while less research has focused on investigating how BCI users may optimally adapt. This paper assesses the influences of positive and negative visual feedback on motor imagery (MI) skills by evaluating the performance. More precisely, a MI based BCI paradigm was employed with fake visual feedback, regardless of subjects' real performance. Subjects were exposed to two experimental conditions — one positive and one negative, in which 80% or 30% of the trials were associated with positive feedback, respectively. The main EEG feature for MI-BCI classification — the asymmetry of mu-rhythm between hemispheres-was more prominent only after the negative feedback session. In addition, the negative feedback condition was accompanied by larger heart rate variability compared to the positive feedback condition. Our results suggest that visual feedback is an important aspect to take into account when designing BCI skill acquisition sessions.
Abstract: This paper reports an experiment that investigated people's body ownership of an avatar that was observed in a virtual mirror. Twenty subjects were recruited in a within-groups study where 10 first experienced a virtual character that synchronously reflected their upper-body movements as seen in a virtual mirror, and then an asynchronous condition where the mirror avatar displayed prerecorded actions, unrelated to those of the participant. The other 10 subjects experienced the conditions in the opposite order. In both conditions the participant could carry out actions that led to elevation above ground level, as seen from their first person perspective and correspondingly in the mirror. A rotating virtual fan eventually descended to 2 m above the ground. The hypothesis was that synchronous mirror reflection would result in higher subjective sense of ownership. A questionnaire analysis showed that the body ownership illusion was significantly greater for the synchronous than asynchronous condition. Additionally participants in the synchronous condition avoided collision with the descending fan significantly more often than those in the asynchronous condition. The results of this experiment are put into context within similar experiments on multisensory correlation and body ownership within cognitive neuroscience.
Abstract: The purpose of BARCODE HOUSING SYTEM, a research project developed over the last four years, has been to create an Internet-based system which facili-tates the interaction of the different actors involved in the design, construction and use of affordable housing built with industrialized methods. One of the compo-nents of the system is an environment which enables different users –architects, clients, developers – to retrieve the housing units generated by a rule-based engine and stored in a repository. Currently, the repository contains over 10,000 housing units. In order to access this information, we have developed clustering techniques based on self-organizing maps and k-means methods.
Abstract: The goal of the project has been to design and implement an ICT environment which facilitates the interaction of the different actors (architects, builders, manufacturers, occupants) involved in the design, construction and use of affordable housing built with industrialized methods. The interwoven working environments which form the structure of the system enable the actors to carry out their activities in a synchronous and asynchronous manner. As well as providing a structure that supports collaboration, the system automatically generates housing units and buildings.
