mathias wellner

I am recently sear­ching for a jour­nal to publish a study on audi­ence pres­sure in our M³ Rowing Simu­la­tor. This is rather dif­fi­cult due to the mul­ti­di­sci­pli­nary approach taken. We use a simu­la­tor with vir­tual rea­lity tech­no­logy, con­duct a sports study on psy­cho­lo­gi­cal effects to inves­ti­gate the fee­ling of pre­sence in the simu­la­tor. It’s easy to get one or two of these topics com­bi­ned in a jour­nal descrip­tion, but four of them are just too much. But nevert­he­l­ess I would like to share which jour­nals I found.

Pre­sence: Tele­ope­ra­tors and Vir­tual Environments

The first aca­de­mic jour­nal for serious inves­ti­ga­tors of tele­ope­ra­tors and vir­tual environ­ments, Pre­sence is fil­led with sti­mu­la­ting mate­rial app­lica­ble to these advan­ced elec­tro­me­cha­ni­cal and com­pu­ter devices. Incor­po­ra­ting per­spec­tives from phy­sics to phi­lo­so­phy, Pre­sence appeals to a wide audi­ence — par­ti­cu­larly mecha­ni­cal and elec­tri­cal engi­neers con­cer­ned with tele­ope­ra­tors; those inte­res­ted in vir­tual environ­ments, inclu­ding com­pu­ter sci­en­tists, high-​​tech artists, and media people; and psy­cho­lo­gists invol­ved in the study of human-​​machine inter­faces and sensorimotor/​cognitive behavior.

I publis­hed my first jour­nal paper there. The review pro­cess was tough and long, but my paper was pro­bably not that good in the beginning.

Cyber­Psy­cho­logy & Behavior

This bimonthly peer-​​reviewed jour­nal explo­res the impact of the Inter­net, multi-​​media and vir­tual rea­lity on beha­vior and society. This jour­nal is a „must read” for psy­cho­lo­gists, psych­ia­trists, socio­lo­gists, edu­ca­tors, com­pu­ter sci­en­tists, busi­ness exe­cu­ti­ves and opinion-​​makers inte­res­ted in the effects of inter­ac­tive technologies.

The focus is simi­lar to that of Pre­sence, alt­hough more on a gene­ral level with regards to inter­ac­tive tech­no­lo­gies and their imp­li­ca­tion on society.

Com­pu­ter Ani­ma­tion and Vir­tual Worlds

With the advent of very power­ful PCs and high-​​end gra­phics cards, there has been an incredi­ble deve­lop­ment in Vir­tual Worlds, real-​​time com­pu­ter ani­ma­tion and simu­la­tion, games. But at the same time, new and chea­per Vir­tual Rea­lity devices have appeared allo­wing an inter­ac­tion with these real-​​time Vir­tual Worlds and even with real worlds through Aug­men­ted Rea­lity. Three-​​dimensional cha­rac­ters, espe­cially Vir­tual Humans are now of an excep­tio­nal qua­lity, which allows to use them in the movie indus­try. But this is only a begin­ning, as with the deve­lop­ment of Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence and Agent tech­no­logy, these cha­rac­ters will become more and more auto­no­mous and even intel­li­gent. They will inha­bit the Vir­tual Worlds in a Vir­tual Life toge­ther with ani­mals and plants.

This would be good for a more gene­ral descrip­tion of how we made the rowing sce­na­rio. Since we focu­sed rather on con­duc­ting a sports study, this would pro­bably not fit well.

Jour­nal of Sports Engi­nee­ring and Technology

The Jour­nal of Sports Engi­nee­ring and Tech­no­logy is the publi­ca­tion of choice for aut­hors see­king to dis­se­mi­nate ori­gi­nal rese­arch fin­dings rela­ted to the deve­lop­ment or app­li­ca­tion of tech­no­logy in sports.
High qua­lity out­put from engi­nee­ring focu­sed rese­arch activity is pre­sen­ted where the objec­tive of the work under­ta­ken was to enhance user per­for­mance (fit­ness, skill, com­fort, etc.), reduce inci­dence and seve­rity of injury, increase par­ti­ci­pa­tion rates, pro­mote par­ti­ci­pa­tion, or enhance the spec­ta­tor experience.

They are quite new (one issue so far).

Jour­nal of Sports Sciences

The Jour­nal of Sports Sci­en­ces publis­hes arti­cles of a high stan­dard on various aspects of the sports sci­en­ces cove­r­ing a num­ber of disci­pli­nary bases, inclu­ding ana­tomy, bio­che­mis­try, bio­me­cha­nics, psy­cho­logy, socio­logy, as well as ergo­no­mics, kinan­thro­po­me­try and other inter­di­sci­pli­nary per­spec­tives. In addi­tion to reports of rese­arch, review arti­cles and book reviews are publis­hed. The empha­sis of the Jour­nal is on the human sci­en­ces, broadly defined, applied to sport and exer­cise. Besi­des expe­ri­men­tal work in human respon­ses to exer­cise, the sub­jects covered will include tech­no­lo­gies such as the design of sports equip­ment and play­ing faci­li­ties, rese­arch in trai­ning, selec­tion, per­for­mance pre­dic­tion or modi­fi­ca­tion, and stress reduc­tion or mani­fes­ta­tion. Manu­scripts dea­ling with ori­gi­nal inves­ti­ga­ti­ons of exer­cise, vali­da­tion of tech­no­lo­gi­cal inno­va­tions in sport or com­pre­hen­sive reviews of topics rele­vant to the sci­en­ti­fic study of sport will be con­side­red for publication.

The Jour­nal pres­ents rese­arch fin­dings in the gro­wing area of exer­cise and sports sci­en­ces to an inter­na­tio­nal audi­ence. The rea­dership for this jour­nal is varied and ran­ges from aca­de­mic rese­arch workers to pro­fes­sio­nals in recrea­tion, sports coa­ching and training.

Jour­nal of Sport & Exer­cise Psychology

The Jour­nal of Sport & Exer­cise Psy­cho­logy (JSEP) publis­hes rese­arch arti­cles by lea­ding world scho­lars that explore the inter­ac­tions bet­ween psy­cho­logy and exer­cise and sport per­for­mance, edi­to­ri­als about con­tem­porary issues in the field, abstracts of cur­rent rese­arch on sport and exer­cise psy­cho­logy, and book reviews. JSEP is an offi­cial publi­ca­tion of the North Ame­ri­can Society for the Psy­cho­logy of Sport and Phy­si­cal Activity (NASPSPA).

Sports Engi­nee­ring

Sports Engi­nee­ring is an inter­na­tio­nal jour­nal publis­hing ori­gi­nal papers on the app­li­ca­tion of engi­nee­ring and sci­ence to sport. The jour­nal intends to fill the niche area which lies bet­ween clas­si­cal engi­nee­ring and sports sci­ence and aims to bridge the gap bet­ween the ana­ly­sis of the equip­ment and of the ath­lete. Areas of inte­rest include the mecha­nics and dyna­mics of sport, the ana­ly­sis of move­ment, instru­men­ta­tion, equip­ment design, sur­face inter­ac­tion, mate­ri­als and model­ling. These topics may be applied to tech­no­logy in almost any sport. The jour­nal will be of par­ti­cu­lar inte­rest to Engi­nee­ring, Phy­sics, Mathe­ma­tics and Sports Sci­ence Depart­ments and will act as a forum where rese­arch, indus­try and the sports sec­tor can exch­ange know­ledge and inno­va­tive ideas.

It all star­ted with the alpen­horn. An elderly woman ente­red the auditory and played this tra­di­tio­nal Swiss instru­ment. The view from the uni­ver­sity to the moun­tains was also nice, alt­hough slightly cloudy on this par­ti­cu­lar day. I would rather see that ver­sion with the blue sky. And I would rather not see the bear living in cap­ti­vity for the sake of being heral­dic ani­mal of the city.

The con­fe­rence (see web­site) is not par­ti­cu­larly inte­res­ting, the theme encom­pas­ses all kind of media shifts, tele­vi­sion, e-​​commerce, and vir­tual environ­ments are all exam­ples for that. The­re­fore, I as an engi­neer see mys­elf to be on the margins of this con­fe­rence. But there will be our ses­sion on Wed­nes­day on crea­ting and mea­su­ring pre­sence. So far psy­cho­lo­gists and eco­no­mists were on the for­e­front, sta­ting their para­digms and theo­ries wit­hout a sin­gle graph showing up.

One excep­tion was Mel Sla­ter from Uni­ver­si­tat Poli­té­c­nica de Cata­lunya in Bar­ce­lona. In his keynote speech on real actions in vir­tual environ­ments he also expres­sed his dis­like with the term pre­sence, which is used and under­s­tood by many rese­ar­chers, often in a con­tra­dic­tory sense. The­re­fore he used the terms place illu­sion for some of the effects which he is investigating.

In the first keynote lec­ture, Mat­thias Stein­mann and Tanja Hacken­bruch explai­ned the con­cept of the rea­lity switch as new para­digm. With this para­digm the old com­mu­ni­ca­tion model (con­tent, chan­nel, reci­pi­ent) was exten­ded, explai­ning immer­sive effects of fic­tio­nal media.

Today the second Loko­mat Sym­po­sium fea­tured the main talks regar­ding the Loko­mat actua­ted gait ortho­sis. Actually the main sci­en­tists were all joi­ned to pre­sent their latest rese­arch. To give you a short impres­sion I will list the talks.

I did not have a talk but was invol­ved in some lab demos of the vir­tual environ­ment exten­sion of the Loko­mat and the addi­tio­nal degrees of free­dom (Gait3D). The audi­ence was really impres­sed and espe­cially for child­ren the vir­tual rea­lity enhan­ce­ment trig­ge­red wild interest.