Roshan Peiris

Rochester Institute of Technology | RIT · iSchool

Based on a virtual reality (VR) sound visualization indicator system named “SoundVizVR” proposed and evaluated in previous research, we developed a plugin for the Unity platform, enabling developers to adopt the SoundVizVR system in their VR applications and games. Next, we worked with two VR game developers to explore the usability of the plugin a...

Virtual Reality (VR) systems use immersive spatial audio to convey critical information, but these audio cues are often inaccessible to Deaf or Hard-of-Hearing (DHH) individuals. To address this, we developed SoundHapticVR, a head-based haptic system that converts audio signals into haptic feedback using multi-channel acoustic haptic actuators. We...

Two-factor Authentication (also known as 2FA or two-step verification) is an authentication method that provides an extra layer of protection to ensure online account security. 2FA methods are used along with other primary authentication methods like PINs and Passwords to verify that the person trying to access any digital account is the person the...

Affective captions employ visual typographic modulations to convey a speaker's emotions, improving speech accessibility for Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing (DHH) individuals. However, the most effective visual modulations for expressing emotions remain uncertain. Bridging this gap, we ran three studies with 39 DHH participants, exploring the design space...

The continued evolution of voice recognition technology has led to its integration into many smart devices as the primary mode of user interaction. Smart speakers are among the most popular smart devices that utilize voice recognition to ofer interactive functions and features to serve as a personal assistant and a control hub for smart homes. Howe...

Blind and visually impaired individuals use tactile graphics to interpret any type of image, figure, or graph. However, the production of these materials is resource exhaustive-taking a lot of time, quality assurance, and money. This research project uses recent advancements in electrotactile feedback to provide an accurate and timely approach to d...

Olfactory disorders can significantly affect a human’s quality of life. We sought to investigate whether there are opportunities for assistive technologies to support people with olfactory disorders in day-to-day life. To achieve this goal, we surveyed 70 people with olfactory disorders to understand their behaviors, experiences, technologies used,...

Autistic individuals commonly encounter challenges in communicating with others which can lead to difficulties in obtaining and maintaining jobs. Thus, job training programs have emphasized training the communication skills of autistic individuals to improve their employability. Hence, we developed a virtual reality application that features avatar...

As many as three million school age children between the ages of 5 and 14 years, live with severe to profound hearing loss in Nigeria. Many of these Deaf or Hard of Hearing (DHH) children developed their hearing loss later in life, non-congenitally, hence their parents are hearing. While their teachers in the Deaf schools they attend can often comm...

Presence is a mental state when a user in virtual reality (VR) reacts to events in it as if it is real. Place illusion (PI) and plausibility illusion (PSI) are components of Presence and depend on the Immersion and Coherence of a VR system and the experience. Measuring Presence (PI and PSI) is critical when designing new systems and experiences. Ho...

While data visualizations have the potential to convey vast quantities of information, they are not always accessible to audiences with vision impairments. We prepared and distributed an online survey to blind and low vision adults to investigate the accessibility of data visualizations across the following five mediums—computers, phones, tablets,...

Speech is expressive in ways that caption text does not capture, with emotion or emphasis information not conveyed. We interviewed eight Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing (DHH) individuals to understand if and how captions’ inexpressiveness impacts them in online meetings with hearing peers. Automatically captioned speech, we found, lacks affective depth, l...

Captions make the audio content of videos accessible and understandable for deaf or hard-of-hearing people (DHH). However, in real-time captioning scenarios, captions alone can be challenging for DHH users to identify the active speaker in a real time in multiple-speaker scenarios. To enhance the accessibility of real-time captioning, we propose Ha...

Figure 1: VR Scenarios prototyped for the study: (a) Proper hand washing tutorial. The user clicks through the numbers to go through the tutorial. When a number is clicked, a video is displayed with the instructions. (b) Bathroom cleaning exercise. The user is required to clean the black stain on the counter using the proper tools. The bottom image...

Based on a virtual reality (VR) sound visualization indicator system named “SoundVizVR” proposed and evaluated in a previous research, we developed a “SoundVizVR Plugin” for the Unity platform which enabled developers to adopt the SoundVizVR system in their VR applications and games. In this study, we worked with two VR game developers to explore t...

A Personal Identification Number (PIN) is a widely adopted authentication method used by smartphones, ATMs, etc. PINs offer strong security and can be reset when compromised (unlike biometric authentication). However, PINs can be inaccessible for blind or low vision (BLV) users due to screen readers voicing PINs to bystanders or potential shoulder...

This work-in-progress explores factors that impact the attitudes towards existing modes of teletherapy and a preliminary exploration of attitudes toward virtual reality teletherapy (VRT) adoption for teletherapy on college campuses. Five semi-structured interviews were conducted with 3 students and 2 campus counselors. Thus far, 3 primary themes (p...

Sounds provide vital information such as spatial and interaction cues in virtual reality (VR) game applications to convey more immersive experiences to VR users. However, it may be a challenge for deaf or hard-of-hearing (DHH) VR users to access the information given by sounds, which could limit their VR experience. To address this limitation, we p...

PIN (Personal Identification Number) code entry is a widely used authentication method used on smartphones, ATMs, etc. However, it is typically subject to shoulder surfing attacks where, a bystander may observe the user’s keypad during PIN code entry. To mitigate this issue, we present a novel method that uses non-visual keypads for entering PIN co...

We present NapWell, a Sleep Assistant using virtual reality (VR) to decrease sleep onset latency by providing a realistic imagery distraction prior to sleep onset. Our proposed prototype was built using commercial hardware and with relatively low cost, making it replicable for future works as well as paving the way for more low cost EOG-VR devices...

Many daily tasks rely on accurately identifying and distinguishing between different colours. However, these tasks can be frustrating and potentially dangerous for people with Colour Vision Deficiency (CVD). Despite prior work exploring how pattern overlays on top of colours can support people with CVD, the solutions were often unintuitive or requi...

This paper presents an exploratory study of designing augmented reality (AR) based interventions to encourage physical activity among students attending virtual classes. As interventions, we designed two AR based interventions: AR Exergame, an interactive game that requires the user to move their hands to grab virtual apples; AR micro-movements, a...

This paper presents an exploratory study of designing augmented reality (AR) based interventions to encourage physical activity among students attending virtual classes. We conducted a focus group study with four HCI students to understand the current behaviour of students during breaks between classes. Based on these insights we designed two AR in...

Deaf or hard-of-hearing (DHH) individuals heavily rely on their visual senses to be aware of their environment, giving them heightened visual cognition and improved attention management strategies. Thus, the eyes have been shown to play a significant role in these visual communication practices and, therefore, many various researches have adopted m...

Everyday life hinges on smell, taste, and temperature-based experiences, from eating to detecting potential hazards (e.g., smell of rotten food, microbial threats, and non-microbial threats such as from hazardous gases) to responding to thermal behavioral changes. These experiences are formative as visceral, vital signals of information, and contri...

This paper presents THED, a wearable thermal display to perceive spatial thermal sensations within a virtual reality (VR) environment. THED consists of a wrist-worn thermal stimulation module and a control module utilizing BluetoothTM communication to connect with the VR environment. To demonstrate THED, we have developed a VR environment showing a...

American Sign Language (ASL) classes are typically held face-to-face to increase interactivity and enhance the learning experience. However, the recent COVID-19 pandemic brought about many changes to course delivery methods, primarily resulting in a move to an online format, which had to occur in a short timeframe. The online format has presented s...

The concept of 'presence' in the context of virtual reality (VR) refers to the experience of being in the virtual environment, even when one is physically situated in the real world. Therefore, it is a key parameter of assessing a VR system, based on which, improvements can be made to it. To overcome the limitations of existing methods that are bas...

In this paper, we propose "TeleSight", proof-of-concept prototype enabling asymmetric collaboration in VR between HMD user and Non-HMD users. TeleSight provides two interaction layers for designing asymmetric interaction, a physical layer for direct tangible interaction with players in VR space and visual layer that visually expresses VR space. Eac...

In the Pinocchio fairy tale, the nose of a boy extends when he lies. Inspired by this tale, we created a Pinocchio VR system that presents the feeling of the nose extending through body ownership illusion. This illusion is created by pulling the nose while presenting the visuals of the nose growing in the head mounted display. Our research that exp...

We propose Liquid-VR, a system that simulates wetness and liquid sensations for the whole body by providing a combination of thermal and vibrotactile stimuli from the user’s face and across the upper body to the lower body. A head mounted display with thermal and vibrotactile modules simulates the wetness sensations on the face with the displayed v...

Smartwatches enable the wrist to be used as an ideal location to provide always-available haptic notifications as they are constantly worn with direct contact with the skin. With the wrist straps, the haptic feedback can be extended to the full space around the wrist to provide more spatial and enriched feedback. With ThermalBracelet, we investigat...

Reports on major events and exhibitions that were part of the 2018 ACM International Symposium on Wearable Computers (ISWC) in Singapore in October 2018.

In this paper, we present a Haptic Collar prototype, a neck worn band with vibrotactile actuators for eyes-free haptic navigation. We evaluate the system for guidance applications on over 11 users, analyzing 4 different tactile patterns regarding comfort and ease of understanding as well as the number of actuators to encode 8 directions (4, 6 and 8...

We present a concept of AURA, an urban personal projection to initiate the communication. In this work, we focus on how to break the ice with strangers through technology in urban public space. The Aura, as an enliven spiritual pet, floats around user's feet. We introduce a simple interaction scenario, attracting a person who comes within personal...

In this research, we introduce an experience sharing platform that enables users to record and playback experiences accompanied with haptics. This platform makes it possible to record and reproduce haptic data with tactile sensation added to video and audio by smartphone using file format MPEG-4. In addition, users can share the experiences includi...

Variable speed drives (VSD) a.k.a an inverter in the market today mainly use application specific integrated circuits for the construction. These IC's are capable of generating PWM signals once the required frequencies are input to the device. The commonly used general purpose PIC microcontroller is an effective and a much cheaper substitution to c...

Map building and obstacle detection are basic tasks in mobile robot navigation. In this paper we present a probability based solution for map building which utilizes time of flight information from an ultrasonic sensor. In contrast to most of the available map building systems, this uses a single ultrasonic sensor, mounted on a rotating shaft. Disc...