Jascha Grübel

• Dr ETH Computer Science, MSc ETH Computer Science, and MSc ETH Science, Technology & Policy
• Assistant Professor at Wageningen University & Research

Hippocampal atrophy is a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease and is associated with deficits in navigation. We investigated whether a novel digital assessment, the Spatial Performance Assessment for Cognitive Evaluation (SPACE), can predict hippocampal integrity beyond traditional neuropsychological tests in older adults. Forty older male participants...

IUMENTA (Latin for livestock) is an innovative software framework designed to construct and simulate digital twins of animals. By leveraging the powerful capability of the Open Digital Twin Platform (ODTP) alongside advanced software sensors, IUMENTA offers researchers a user-friendly tool to seamlessly develop adaptive digital replicas of animal-b...

INTRODUCTION: Alzheimer′s disease affects spatial abilities that are often overlooked in standard cognitive screening tools. We assessed whether the spatial navigation tasks in the Spatial Performance Assessment for Cognitive Evaluation (SPACE) can complement existing tools such as the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA). METHODS: 348 participants...

BACKGROUND Augmented Reality (AR) as an interactive communication tool has matured to the point that it can be used in the classroom to engage medical students. OBJECTIVE We assess a state-of-the-art AR game published together with a modern cell atlas on cells of the oral cavity to investigate the trade-offs of the new technology to convey medical...

The Spatial Performance Assessment for Cognitive Evaluation (SPACE) is a novel iPad serious game designed to identify differences in spatial ability indicative of early signs of cognitive impairment. This paper reports on the development of SPACE and presents the results from three usability studies across different ages. Study 1 compared the tradi...

Experiments as Code (ExaC) is a concept for reproducible, auditable, debuggable, reusable, & scalable experiments. Experiments are a crucial tool to understand Human-Building Interactions (HBI) and build a coherent theory around it. However, a common concern for experiments is their auditability and reproducibility. Experiments are usually designed...

In this paper, we explore the mutual effect of prior background expectations and visibility afforded by the 3D configuration of the physical environment on wayfinding efficiency and strategy in multilevel buildings. We perform new analyses on data from 149 participants who performed six unaided and directed wayfinding tasks in virtual buildings wit...

Gender differences in navigation performance are a recurrent and controversial topic. Previous research suggests that men outperform women in navigation tasks and that men and women exhibit different navigation strategies. Here, we investigate whether motivation to complete the task moderates the relationship between navigation performance and gend...

Complex simulations and machine-learning models increase in application in research, industry, and governance. However, applying these systems with reasonable accuracy and efficiency requires large-scale efforts of data collection, data transformation, data analysis, and data visualization. At the same time, maintaining the required infrastructure,...

This paper reports on an online study to investigate the interaction between the environment typology, and crowdedness with aesthetic perceptions of the environment.

Gender differences in navigation performance are a recurrent and controversial topic. Previous research suggests that men outperform women in navigation tasks and that men and women exhibit different navigation strategies. Here, we investigate whether motivation to complete the task moderates the relationship between navigation performance and gend...

Smart Cities already surround us, and yet they are still incomprehensibly far from directly impacting everyday life. While current Smart Cities are often inaccessible, the experience of everyday citizens may be enhanced with a combination of the emerging technologies Digital Twins (DTs) and Situated Analytics. DTs represent their Physical Twin (PT)...

Smart Cities already surround us, and yet they are still incomprehensibly far from directly impacting everyday life. While current Smart Cities are often inaccessible, the experience of everyday citizens may be enhanced with a combination of the emerging technologies Digital Twins (DTs) and Situated Analytics. DTs represent their Physical Twin (PT)...

Sensors have become ubiquitous in buildings but are rarely connected to a network, and their potential to analyse the performance, use, and interaction with a building is not yet fully realised. In the coming years, we expect sensors in buildings to become part of the Internet of Things (IoT) and grow in numbers to form a Dense Indoor Sensor Networ...

A common concern in experimental research is the auditability and reproducibility of experiments. Experiments are usually designed, provisioned, managed, and analyzed by diverse teams of specialists (e.g., researchers, technicians and engineers) and may require many resources (e.g. cloud infrastructure, specialized equipment). Even though researche...

Recent advances in Augmented Reality (AR), the Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing, and Digital Twins transform the types, rates, and volume of information generated in buildings as well as the mediums through which they can be perceived by users. These advances push the standard approach of media architecture to embed screens in the built en...

A Dense Indoor Sensor Network (DISN) with 390 LoRaWAN sensors and 3 gateways have been installed in 21 rooms across 8 floors and more than 5 months worth of data were collected.

The talk was given in the Best Paper Candidate session at 11:30am CET on the 24th of March 2021 at the 19th IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications (PerCom 2021) in Kassel, Germany. This version of the talk was pre-recorded as a backup by the author. The teaser summarized the paper in one minute and has been circulat...

Long Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN) has been advanced as an alternative for creating indoor sensor networks that extends beyond its original long-distance communication purpose. For the present paper, we developed a Dense Indoor Sensor Network (DISN) with 390 sensor nodes and three gateways and empirically evaluated its performance for half a y...

We present a large data of indoor Long Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN) network metadata to study Dense Indoor Sensor Networks (DISN). We collected 14 million transmissions from 390 sensors between date February 2020 and date September 2020. The transmissions have been received by 3 gateways across 8 floors and distances up to 64 m. The prototype...

The talk was given in the Best Paper Candidate session at 11:30am CET on the 24th of March 2021 at the 19th IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications (PerCom 2021) in Kassel, Germany. This version of the talk was pre-recorded as a backup by the author. The teaser summarized the paper in one minute and has been circulat...

Renewable energy systems (RES) can impact landscape aesthetics and influence the public's perception of the landscape and their acceptance of large infrastructure projects. Perceptual processes have consequences for both physiological and behavioral reactions to visual landscape changes and have not been systematically assessed in the context of RE...

Agent-based modelling (ABM) can be used as a computational tool to model human routing behaviour, and offers particular promise when combined with insights from cognitive science. In this paper, we introduce typical errors into the encoding of the agents mental representation of the environment. This method deviates from the classical computer scie...

Living in a disadvantaged neighborhood is associated with worse health and early mortality. Although many mechanisms may partially account for this effect, disadvantaged neighborhood environments are hypothesized to elicit stress and emotional responses that accumulate over time and influence physical and mental health. However, evidence for neighb...

Agent-based modelling (ABM) can be used as a computational tool to model human routing behaviour, and offers particular promise when combined with insights from cognitive science. In this paper, we introduce typical errors into the encoding of the agents mental representation of the environment. This method deviates from the classical computer scie...

Virtual reality (VR) experiments are increasingly employed because of their internal and external validity compared to real-world observation and laboratory experiments, respectively. VR is especially useful for geographic visualizations and investigations of spatial behavior. In spatial behavior research, VR provides a platform for studying the re...

Investigating the interactions among multiple participants is a challenge for researchers from various disciplines, including the decision sciences and spatial cognition. With a local area network and dedicated software platform, experimenters can efficiently monitor the behavior of the participants that are simultaneously immersed in a desktop vir...

Routing is an essential process for pedestrian Agent-Based Modelling (ABM). ABM is a computational tool to model and analyse human behaviour. The process of routing is well-studied in both Computer Science and Cognitive Science. However, routing in ABM is often taken for granted and both its impact and its implementation are disregarded. In this wo...

EVE is a framework for the setup, implementation, and evaluation of experiments in virtual reality. The framework aims to reduce repetitive and error-prone steps that occur during experiment-setup while providing data management and evaluation capabilities. EVE aims to assist researchers who do not have specialized training in computer science. The...

Previous research in spatial cognition has often relied on simple spatial tasks in static environments in order to draw inferences regarding navigation performance. These tasks are typically divided into categories (e.g., egocentric or allocentric) that reflect different two-systems theories. Unfortunately, this two-systems approach has been insuff...

R script for correlation/loading visualisation. Short script to visualise the factor loadings and correlation matrix based on the design used by [74] and adapted for our purpose. Detailed instructions on how to create such a visualisation can be found at http://rpubs.com/danmirman/plotting_factor_analysis. (R)

Instructions for participants. Text handed out to the participants before the experiment. (ODT)

Database export. Export of the participant data, ready for loading into Matlab. (MAT)

Previous research in spatial cognition has often relied on simple spatial tasks in staticenvironments in order to draw inferences regarding navigation performance. These tasksare typically divided into categories (e.g., egocentric or allocentric) that reflect differenttwo-systems theories. Unfortunately, this two-systems approach has been insuffici...

Symposium S2: Spatial Representation and Processing – What Information Do We Need?

Abstract. EVE (Experiments in Virtual Environments), is a novel VR framework that allows researchers to setup, execute and evaluate experiments in virtual environments (VE). By automating different steps, EVE reduces the time and costs associated with the development and evaluation of experiments in VE. The framework operates under the platform of...

In this thesis we present a framework to design, implement and run Virtual Reality (VR) experiments. The framework offers test suites to run in conjunction with a VR experiment to isolate different aspects of the VR experiment. For instance, such a test suite specifically assesses the effects of Human Interface Device (HID) interaction on the resul...

A major issue with virtual reality (VR) studies in spatial cognition is the dissociation of spatial ability from the capacity to use human interface devices (HID) such as joystick/gamepad and mouse. Previous research has found large individual differences in spatial navigation in both real and virtual worlds (Wolbers & Hegarty, 2010; Ishikawa & Mon...