CISE News & Events
Grad Student Receives IEEE Best Paper Award
April 2, 2008
UF CISE graduate student Aaron Kotranza and collaborators Assistant Professor Benjamin Lok, Drs. Adeline Deladisma and Scott Lind (Medical College of Georgia) and Dr. Carla Pugh (Northwestern University) received the Best Paper Award for their work titled, "Virtual Human + Tangible Interface = Mixed Reality Human: A Pilot Study with a Virtual Breast Exam Patient" at the IEEE Virtual Reality 2008 Conference. The conference was held in Reno, NV on March 8th-14th. The IEEE Virtual Reality conference is the virtual reality field's most prestigious and selective conference.
Mr. Kotranza's paper proposed, developed, and evaluated the first mixed reality human. A mixed reality human is a virtual human that has an embodied physical form with haptics and touch sensors. In his implementation, Kotranza integrated a virtual human, a physical breast simulator used in medical education, and a full-body mannequin to create an interactive mixed reality patient. The mixed reality patient enabled the medical student to practice the high-anxiety situation of talking to, and comforting, the mixed reality patient while performing a breast examination. End-user evaluation of the interface highlighted that providing a physical interface for virtual human interaction significantly elevated students' use of empathy and interpersonal touch. These findings demonstrate the significant communication skills education potential of integrating mixed reality humans into interpersonal scenario training.
Their paper was one of five presented by the Virtual Experiences Research Group at IEEE Virtual Reality 2008 and the co-located IEEE 3D User Interfaces conference. Other presenters include graduate students John Quarles (two papers), Kyle Johnsen, and Andrew Raij. For more information on this and other work, please visit: http://www.cise.ufl.edu/research/vegroup
From left: John Quarles, Aaron Kotranza, Assistant Professor Benjamin Lok, Kyle Johnsen, and Andrew Raij at IEEE VR2008.
