Recent Lab News

Kinesiology professor and director of the Affordance Perception-Action Laboratory (APAL) Tom Stoffregen, PhD, was quoted in a recent WCCO feature story about motion sickness, and why some people are affected and others aren’t.  The article was searching for an answer to the question: what happens to our bodies on an intense MN State Fair ride? […]

Kinesiology professor Tom Stoffregen, PhD, has published a chapter in a newly released book, Perception as Information Detection: Reflections on Gibson’s Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. The book commemorates the 40th anniversary of James J. Gibson’s landmark work, The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception (1979). Current scholars were asked to reflect on individual chapters from […]

ABC News Inside Science has published a story on how despite improvements made in virtual reality (VR) systems over the years, many VR users still experience motion sickness, quoting Kinesiology professor Tom Stoffregen, PhD, extensively. Individuals, particularly women, experience motion sickness differently, and Stoffregen’s theory of postural instability as the cause was discussed in the […]

Thomas Stoffregen, PhD, School of Kinesiology professor and director of the Affordance Perception Action Laboratory, is quoted in the article, “Cybersickness: Why People Experience Motion Sickness During Virtual Reality,” by Meeri Kim, Inside Science reporter. The publication analyzes the significant rates of nausea in virtual reality systems, which are between 40% and 70% of the population after only […]

School of Kinesiology professor and director of the Affordance Perception-Action Laboratory (APAL) Thomas Stoffregen, PhD, is the co-principal investigator on a new, four-year study from the National Science Foundation. The award, “Prediction, Early Detection, and Mitigation of Virtual Reality Simulator Sickness,” allocates over $1,100,000 towards research on motion sickness in virtual reality environments. The interdisciplinary grant is […]

On Monday, July 29, Tom Stoffregen, PhD, professor in the School of Kinesiology and director of the Affordance Perception-Action Laboratory, presented at SIGGRAPH 2019 in Los Angeles, CA. The conference, from July 28 – August 1, featured “global innovators who are changing what’s possible in computer graphics, animation, VR, Gaming, and Emerging Technologies.” Stoffregen, invited speaker […]

Chris Curry, PhD student in the School of Kinesiology and member of the Affordance-Perception Action Laboratory, has published an article, “3D Hand Scanning to Digital Draping for Glove Design,” in the Advances in Interdisciplinary Practice in Industrial Design book series. The article investigates new technologies such as 3D simulation and prototyping in relation to glove […]

Ruth Rath, PhD candidate in the School of Kinesiology and member of the Affordance Perception-Action Laboratory (APAL), was awarded a travel grant from the School to attend the International Conference on Perception and Action (ICPA). The event will be held in Groningen, the Netherlands from July 3 – 6, 2019. Rath will present two posters, […]

Chris Curry, PhD student in the School of Kinesiology and member of the Affordance Perception-Action Laboratory, was awarded a student travel grant from the Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (ACM SIGCHI). Curry will use the award funds to attend the Virtual Reality Software and Technology Symposium (VRST) 2019, co-sponsored by ACM SIGCHI and SIGGRAPH. […]

Chris Curry, Kinesiology doctoral candidate and member of the Affordance Perception-Action Laboratory, has been awarded a $1000 NSF Research Trainee Mini-grant for lab equipment. The lab equipment will be used for two research projects that focus on Virtual Reality (VR). One project is related to Curry’s dissertation research, which involves investigating ways to potentially mitigate […]

Chris Curry, doctoral student at the School of Kinesiology and lab assistant in the Affordance Perception-Action Laboratory, received a NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) travel grant to attend the Advanced Technology Institute’s Nonlinear Methods for Psychological Science, hosted by the American Psychological Association. The conference will be held from June 17 – 21, 2019 at the […]

Nicolette Peterson, doctoral student in the School of Kinesiology and member of the Affordance Perception-Action Laboratory, has received the Mace Travel Award to participate in the International Conference on Perception and Action. The conference will be held in Groningen, Netherlands from July 3 – 7, 2019. The grant is funded by the International Society for […]

Chris Curry, PhD candidate in the School of Kinesiology, has received a certificate of appreciation for mentoring Mehul Maheshwari, a junior attending Wayzata High School (WHS), along with Victoria Interrante, PhD, a professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the U of M. Curry was recognized at the 2019 WHS Honors Mentor […]

School of Kinesiology doctoral candidate Christopher Curry, movement science emphasis, was awarded a professional development grant from CEHD’s graduate and professional student organization, GradSEHD. Curry will be using the $250 award to attend a non-linear methods workshop. He is a member of the Affordance Perception-Action Laboratory (APAL) and is advised by Tom Stoffregen, PhD.

Christopher Curry, a doctoral student in the School of Kinesiology, has been awarded a renewal of his NSF-funded fellowship based on his strong interest in interdisciplinary research. Curry received a 2018-19 NSF-funded fellowship last year. This 2019-20 award will continue to fund his new research focusing on cybersickness in virtual reality. The NSF-funded fellowship is […]

School of Kinesiology professor and director of the Affordance Perception-Action Laboratory (APAL) Thomas Stoffregen, PhD, collaborated with choreographer Pramila Vasudevan, Aniccha Arts and the Weisman Art Museum to create “#1 of 30.” This Collaboration Incubator project explores the phenomenon of bodily sway and motion, and was inspired by Stoffregen’s research about body sway: the innate […]

Chris Curry, PhD student at the School of Kinesiology and member of the Affordance Perception Action Laboratory, presented his poster, “Using Natural Hand Positions to Improve Anthropometric Product Design Data,” at the 2019 International Symposium on Human Factors and Ergonomics in Health Care (HFES). The Symposium offers innovative research, workshops and keynote speakers on issues […]

Thomas Stoffregen, PhD, School of Kinesiology professor and director of the Affordance Perception Action Laboratory, and Pramila Vasudevan, choreographer of Aniccha Arts, are collaborating on a spring “Incubator Project” at the Weisman Art Museum (WAM). Their installation, #1 of 30, uses movement and “performance as a method of scientific and creative inquiry.” By destabilizing the dancers’ environment through external […]

School of Kinesiology doctoral candidate Hannah Walter lead authored the article, “Unstable coupling of body sway with imposed motion precedes visually induced motion sickness,” published in Human Movement Science. Walter is an advisee of Thomas Stoffregen, PhD, professor and director of the Affordance Perception-Action Laboratory (APAL). Stoffregen co-authored this article with Walter along with APAL […]

Tom Stoffregen, PhD, School of Kinesiology professor and director of the Affordance Perception Action Laboratory, and colleagues have published an article in the online publication, Human Movement Science.  The article, Adaptive perception of changes in affordances for walking on a ship at sea,  studied how subjects walking on a ship at sea experienced changes in judgments of their walking […]