Bio:

Jonas Keppel is a research assistant at the Human-Computer Interaction Group of the University of Duisburg-Essen. For his Bachelor's degree, he studied Mathematics at the University of Duisburg-Essen and worked as a student assistant during his studies, where he gained teaching experience as a tutor and corrector. Further, he was awarded the Deutschlandstipendium of the UDE several times. Jonas received his Master's degree in Technical Mathematics with application in computer science from the University of Duisburg-Essen as well, where he wrote his Master's thesis in cooperation between mathematics and computer science about a visualization tool to investigate attacks on deep learning models. His current research interest also lies in the field of human-computer interaction and he contributes to the project "Erweiterte Gesundheitsintelligenz für persönliche Verhaltensstrategien im Alltag" (Eghi).

Publications:

• Faltaous, Sarah; Prochazka, Marvin; Auda, Jonas; Keppel, Jonas; Wittig, Nick; Gruenefeld, Uwe; Schneegass, Stefan: Give Weight to VR: Manipulating Users’ Perception of Weight in Virtual Reality with Electric Muscle Stimulation, Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA 2022. (ISBN 9781450396905) doi:10.1145/3543758.3547571) CitationAbstractDetails

  Virtual Reality (VR) devices empower users to experience virtual worlds through rich visual and auditory sensations. However, believable haptic feedback that communicates the physical properties of virtual objects, such as their weight, is still unsolved in VR. The current trend towards hand tracking-based interactions, neglecting the typical controllers, further amplifies this problem. Hence, in this work, we investigate the combination of passive haptics and electric muscle stimulation to manipulate users’ perception of weight, and thus, simulate objects with different weights. In a laboratory user study, we investigate four differing electrode placements, stimulating different muscles, to determine which muscle results in the most potent perception of weight with the highest comfort. We found that actuating the biceps brachii or the triceps brachii muscles increased the weight perception of the users. Our findings lay the foundation for future investigations on weight perception in VR.