BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//wp-events-plugin.com//7.4.5//EN TZID:Europe/Paris X-WR-TIMEZONE:Europe/Paris BEGIN:VEVENT UID:0-286@lisn.upsaclay.fr DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Paris:20250707T140000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/Paris:20250707T140000 DTSTAMP:20250630T115405Z URL:https://www.lisn.upsaclay.fr/evenements/virtual-reality-forest-bathing -beyond-optimal-stress-reduction/ SUMMARY:Virtual Reality Forest Bathing: Beyond Optimal Stress Reduction DESCRIPTION:Forest bathing is practice of sensory immersion in a nature env ironment for stress relief and mental resource restoration. Forest bathing offers many positive effects that can help people’s mental health\; how ever\, many people who are in the most need of stress reduction benefits d o not have access to nature\, such as people in hospitals\, nursing homes\ , and large cities. Virtual reality (VR) has the potential to increase acc essibility to the benefits of nature by delivering immersive nature simula tions that provide similar benefits. To create an effective virtual nature environment (VNE)\, research needs to be conducted on the components of a nature environment that make forest bathing effective. Additionally\, a k ey issue with creating VNE’s is making them deployable on accessible\, e veryday VR headsets like the Oculus Quest 2. This \;talk \;will di scuss the results from our experiments showing the potential of biomass\, or living green nature\, as an essential component for restorative effect. I will also include current findings and what's to come!\nBiography\nFran cisco R. Ortega is an Associate Professor at Colorado State University ( CSU) and has been Director of the Natural User Interaction Lab (NUILAB) si nce Fall 2018. Dr. Ortega earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science (CS) with a focus on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and 3D User Interfaces (3DUI) from Florida International University (FIU). He also held the Postdoctora l and visiting assistant professor positions at FIU between February 2015 and July 2018. His research has focused on  (1) multimodal and unimodal i nteraction (gesture-centric)\, which includes gesture elicitation (e.g.\, a form of participatory design)\, (2) information access effort in augment ed reality (e.g.\, visual cues and automation bias)\, (3) AR notifications \, and (4) stress reduction using virtual reality forest bathing.  For mu ltimodal interaction research\, Dr. Ortega focuses on enhancing user int eraction through (a) multimodal elicitation\, (b) developing interactive t echniques\, and (c) refining augmented reality visualization techniques. T he primary domains for interaction include general environments\,  immers ive analytics\, and VR sketching.  His research has resulted in over 90 p eer-reviewed publications\, including books\, journals\, conferences\, wor kshops\, and magazine articles\, in venues such as ACM CHI\, ACM VRST\, IE EE VR\, IEEE TVCG\, IEEE ISMAR\, ACM PACMHCI\, ACM ISS\, ACM SUI\, IEEE 3D UI\, HFES\, and Human Factor Journals\, among others.  Dr. Ortega has e xperience with multiple government-funded projects. For example\, Dr. Ort ega served as a co-Principal Investigator for the DARPA Communicating wit h Computers project. He is a principal investigator (PI) for a 3-year effo rt funded by ONR\, titled "Perceptual/Cognitive Aspects of Augmented Reali ty: Experimental Research and a Computational Model." He was recently awar ded a new ONR grant titled “Assessing Cognitive Load and Managing Extran eous Load to Optimize Training.” The National Science Foundation and oth er agencies and companies have also funded him. This includes the NSF CARE ER 2023 for microgestures and multimodal interaction. Since his tenure-tra ck appointment at CSU in August 2018\, Dr. Ortega has brought over 4.2 m illion dollars in external funding (with 3.7 million as principal investig ator).  \nHis lab website is https://nuilab.org CATEGORIES:IaH,Séminaires LOCATION:LISN Site Belvédère\, Rue du Belvédère Campus universitaire b ât 507 91405 Orsay\, France X-APPLE-STRUCTURED-LOCATION;VALUE=URI;X-ADDRESS=Rue du Belvédère Campus universitaire bât 507 91405 Orsay\, France;X-APPLE-RADIUS=100;X-TITLE=LIS N Site Belvédère:geo:0,0 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:Europe/Paris X-LIC-LOCATION:Europe/Paris BEGIN:DAYLIGHT DTSTART:20250330T030000 TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0200 TZNAME:CEST END:DAYLIGHT END:VTIMEZONE END:VCALENDAR