MR Restaurant

The Mixed Reality Restaurant Pilot Project was designed to measure the affective response of persons who stutter when presented with an everyday life experience. Partnering with the IST ACTIVE Lab, the UCF Interactive Performance Lab (IPL) and the UCF Department of Communicative Disorders, a mixed reality restaurant environment was created for testing.

The scenario presented the participants with a restaurant environment that was 300 square feet of physical space, augmented by a virtual environment of approximately 1,000 square feet. Together they comprised the restaurant the participant visited. An Interactor troupe from IPL created the roles of hostess, wait staff and other customers. Surround sound provided the ambient noise of the kitchen and traffic outside.

Participants wore the Canon Coaster HMD, and physiological data was collected from various equipment, including a galvanic skin response meter and the B-Alert EEG system. This pilot was our first exploration into including sensing devices as part of the experience, allowing us to learn more about how the rehabilitation experience affects the participants.