Panel

Perception in XR projects: issues of sentience, illusions and digital reality research

Participants
  • Paweł Gwiaździński
    Paweł Gwiaździński
    Paweł Gwiaździński

    Paweł Gwiaździński

    Doctoral student of cognitive neurosciences at the Jagiellonian University (Cracow), doctoral student of philosophy at the Silesian University, staff member at Jagiellonian University’s Collegium Medicum. Researcher associated with the 4E movement in cognition-related sciences with a focus on sensory substitution, virtual reality, UX research and issues of online disinformation.

  • Grzegorz Pochwatko
    Grzegorz Pochwatko
    Grzegorz Pochwatko

    Grzegorz Pochwatko

    Psychologist, researcher and academic teacher. Founder and manager of the Virtual Reality and Psychophysiology Laboratory at the Institute of Psychology of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Experienced in managing scientific research projects. Active in disseminating and popularising science for years. His research interests involve behaviours of virtual reality users, with a particular focus on interactions between avatars, virtual humanoid agents and robots. Explores issues of shared presence in traditional virtual environments and cinematographic VR. One of his most recent projects involves the influence of VR film on local history, location attachment, and civic involvement interests. Joined forces with researchers from the Łódź Film School, University of Łódź and National Information Processing Institute to implement a research project with a focus on VR film language (https://twitter.com/vnLab1). His most recent EEA-funded project involves a multisensory Virtual Air Pollution Experience – VAPE (https://twitter.com/VAPEproject2, https://www.facebook.com/vapeproject/). Has been collaborating with non-governmental organisations and local governments, and – in the area of interdisciplinary scientific projects – with representatives of technical sciences and fine arts.

Perception in XR projects: issues of sentience, illusions and digital reality research

18.11.2020

Participants: Grzegorz Pochwatko, Paweł Gwiaździński

Moderated by: Jakub Wróblewski

Chat exchange on Messenger, November 2nd 2020:

Paweł Gwiaździński: It depends on whether you agree with the proposition that sensory substitution is perception, that discovering the world by using artificial senses is a good fit for the definition of perceiving. But I may well be nitpicking here, there are researchers out there who would certainly agree.

Grzegorz Pochwatko: And what is an artificial sense? Asking out of curiosity.

PG: See? The word itself is already steeped in perception-related terminology. Someone who disbelieves that observing the world through SS is perception would not refer to it as artificial sense.

GP: To me, sight, hearing etc. are senses.

PG: There you go. Is seeing through sound perception?

GP: There’s no such thing 🙂

PG: Why?

GP: Because rods and cones are not sensitive to light. Sorry, sound.

PG: You mean that you have never heard of such thing – or you believe that these devices don’t meet conditions required for the effect to be referred to as seeing?

GP: They are, to light.

PG: Sensory substitution is a technology for blind persons, and sometimes for the deaf, which means that cones are of no consequence here.

The panel will become a pretext for engaging in debates regarding observation and perception, illusions generated by virtual systems, state-of-the-art methods of gauging activeness levels in immersive project participants, and the essence of and relations in digital environments.