The VR Room – Room to Grow and Learn

Among the sophisticated equipment in LTU’s Computational Cognition Lab is high-definition transcranial direct-current stimulation (HD-tDCS) device, which sends an electric current to a brain area beneath the electrodes. The stimulated brain area can then be studied in relation to a behavior or cognitive process.

It’s not really called “The VR Room.” The Computational Cognition Laboratory opened in 2023 in a former College of Arts and Sciences (CoAS) classroom in which LTU’s three cognitive scientists conduct psychological research, teach, and coach their students in research. There is a large space dedicated to Virtual Reality (VR) research in that room, however.

Corey Bohil, Ph.D., Franco Delogu, Ph.D., and Hamad Al-Azary, Ph.D., share the space that contains three workstations for behavioral data collection in cognitive tasks; systems for brain stimulation and physiological measurement; a couple of powerful desktop computers for data analysis, and “then there’s a large area that comprises close to half the room set aside for VR research,” Bohil said. “It has room for people to walk around. VR is often experienced by wearing a head-mounted display that can track where your body moves and can allow you to look around in 360 degrees and experience an alternate reality.”

Delogu analyzes an eye-tracking recording of a simulated cardiopulmonary bypass procedure with his students, with the goal of studying how to better train heart-lung machine operators.

Bohil’s research focuses on cognitive processes related to decision making and classification, along with applied research related to human-technology interaction for improving training and performance. His work makes use of computational modeling, virtual and mixed-reality technologies, physiological measurement, and neuroimaging.

In the “VR Room,” he studies learning. In other words, how many fewer mistakes might people make after repeating the same process several times. Recently, LTU acquired sophisticated equipment that allows researchers to create very high-quality 360-degree VR videos showing, for example, activities in a hospital operating room or on a manufacturing plant floor. “I personally intend to examine where a person is looking in that space, especially in a new environment. How does attention change over time? We have software that records eye movements to help us understand how learning in those environments differs between novices and experts and transfers from a VR setting once you’re in the real environment,” Bohil explained.

Corey Bohil dons a head-mounted display to view a medical training video in 360-degree stereoscopic VR (virtual reality).

The VR technology in the Computational Cognition Lab can also record bodily movements in addition to eye movement. He said, “I’m interested in cognition: how people learn or think and how that translates to behavior. The common thread is cognition and behavior. We now have cutting-edge methods to observe how the body plays a role in learning.”

Delogu is also using VR for memory research in the lab, as well as in his classroom teaching related to neuroscience.

Undergraduate psychology students are also learning in the lab with opportunities to collaborate with faculty research in areas such as sensation and perception, metaphor and cognition, and the psychology of virtual environments.

Bohil, Delogu, and Al-Azary have expertise in research and believe that, in collaboration with the subject-matter experts in the Colleges of Arts and Sciences and Health Sciences, LTU has the potential to bring a new understanding to how people learn and perform tasks.

Al-Azary concurs. “I’d like to point out that what most people think of when you say ‘psychology’ is the therapeutic setting with a clinician.” But the foundational knowledge that the field of psychology is built upon largely comes from cognitive psychology because most cutting-edge theories today are based on what we’ve learned from behavioral psychology, about how cognition happens, how we form habits, and how our motivation system works." In other words, Al-Azary said, “Cognitive psychology is a life science.”

by Renée Ahee