Facilities | Affordance Perception-Action Laboratory

Moving room

The primary facility is the "moving room." This is a large box, 2.4 meters on a side, that is mounted on wheels so that it rolls back and forth along rails. Three sides of the box and the ceiling are covered with plywood, the inside surface of which is covered with a complex, naturalistic visual pattern (marble-pattern paper). The fourth side is open, providing access. Experimental participants stand on the concrete floor of the laboratory with their backs to the open side, so that the walls and ceiling fill the field of view. Movement of the room generates nearly global optical flow, which constitutes the experimental stimulus. The maximum amplitude of motion is 0.6 meters.

The original moving room was developed by David Lee in Scotland. It was moved by hand, or by a simple electric motor. The moving room in the Human Factors Research Lab is moved by a highly powered motor under computer control. This gives us great control over room motion, in terms of velocity, acceleration, frequency, and so on. It also permits us to produce motions that can be precisely repeated across trials.

The moving room is a versatile device that can be used for a wide variety of research topics, including human-computer interaction, and motion sickness.

The moving room is undergoing a refurbishment and mechanical upgrade to improve its operating characteristics and to reduce structural vibration. Major components of the room are being replaced, including the rails, wheels, and the room itself. These changes will improve operation, in general, but are particularly targeted at our upcoming, NIH-funded research on motion sickness.

Head Mounted Display

The Head Mounted Display (HMD) lab features an Oculus Rift system. We use a magnetic tracking system to collect data on motion of the head and torso. Data on joint rotation (hips, ankles) can be collected using goniometers. The HMD is used primarily for the study of postural instability and motion sickness in virtual environment systems; sometimes known as cybersickness. Motion sickness in virtual environment systems, widely known as cybersickness, is a persistent problem that has hampered the development and use of HMD technology. One particularly challenging finding is the existence of large sex differences in cybersickness. These effects could have legal and social ramifications, in terms of access and diversity in careers that rely on HMD technologies.

Data Collection Systems

The following are housed in the laboratory:

Force plate (AccuSwayPlus, AMTI)
Electro-goniometers, and electro-myography (Biopac, Inc.)
Magnetic tracking systems (Polhemus, Inc.; Ascension Technology Corp.).
Synchronization of data collection through different technologies is accomplished using a Motion Monitor (Innovative Sports Training, Inc.).

In addition, APAL is a stakeholder in a 9-camera digital video motion capture system (SMART, BTS Bioengineering)