President
Hiroaki Kiyokawa (Saitama University, Japan)
Hiroaki graduated from Yamagata University with a Bachelor of Engineering in 2016. In 2017, Hiroaki enrolled in the Innovative Flex Course for Frontier Organic Systems which is a 5-year doctoral program offered at Yamagata University. He commenced employment as a young research fellow at the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science since 2019. Hiroaki is now an Assistant Professor at Saitama University. His current research interests are concern the pursuit of image-based feature for material perception (e.g. glossiness, translucency) and the role of surface reflectance properties in the visual perception of self-motion.
www: https://sites.google.com/view/hiroakikiyokawa/
email: hkiyokawa@mail.saitama-u.ac.jp
Founding academic members
 |
A/Prof Juno Kim (University of New South Wales, Australia)
Juno is the lead researcher of the Sensory Processes Research Laboratory, University of New South Wales (UNSW Sydney). He conducts research examining the effects of multisensory integration on human performance and perception. One recent area of interest has been to understand how display lag affects perception of self-motion, presence and cybersickness in virtual environments. Dr Kim is also devoted to promoting health technology innovation (HTI) throughout the Asia Pacific region. His collective works have appeared in top outlets, including Neurology, Journal of Vision, Current Biology, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and Nature Neuroscience.
www: https://research.unsw.edu.au/people/dr-juno-kim
|
 |
Prof Stephen Palmisano (University of Wollongong, Australia)
Stephen is internationally recognised as an expert on self-motion perception and vection (i.e., the illusion of self-motion). Over the last 20 years he has shown that many previously overlooked visual consequences of self-motion - such as stereoscopic motion, changes in optical size, viewpoint jitter and eye-movements - all play important roles in vection. Stephen is also well known for his research on stereoscopic depth perception, postural control when standing, and motion sickness. In the last decade he has focussed this expertise into his research on simulation and virtual reality (including his studies on simulation based mines rescue training and cybersickness from head-mounted displays).
www: https://scholars.uow.edu.au/display/stephen_palmisano
|
 |
A/Prof Stuart Perry (University of Technology Sydney, Australia)
Stuart has over 20 years of experience in research on image processing, psychophysics, signal processing, image quality and the quantification of image preference and aesthetics. He is co-director of the Perceptual Imaging Laboratory (PILab) at the University of Technology Sydney and works with industry and government and international academics on computer vision, Virtual and Augmented Reality, 3D scanning, light field capture, as well as colour and perceptual quality in 3D environments. He is an Australian Representative for ISO standards for still image compression and chair of the JPEG Pleno Ad Hoc Group on Point Cloud Compression.
www: https://www.uts.edu.au/staff/stuart.perry/
|
 |
Prof Bernhard Riecke (Simon Fraser University, Canada)
Bernhard is a full professor at the School of Interactive Arts and Technology at Simon Fraser University, where he directs the iSpace Lab (an acronym for immersive Spatial Perception Action/Art Cognition and Embodiment). He has extensive former research training when he was at the Virtual Reality Group of Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen, Germany. His key research areas include human spatial cognition/orientation/updating/navigation; Enabling robust and effortless spatial orientation in VR and telepresence; Self-motion perception, illusions (“vection”), interfaces, and simulation; and investigating and designing for transformative positive experiences in VR.
www: http://ispace.iat.sfu.ca/riecke/
|
 |
Prof Michiteru Kitazaki (Toyohashi University of Technology, Japan)
Michiteru Kitazaki is a professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, and principal investigator of the Visual Psychophysics Laboratory since 2000. His research combines perceptual psychology and virtual reality to investigate human perception and action, to elucidate cognitive mechanisms for empathy with non-human agents, and to design future bodies with appropriate ownership, high effectiveness, and novel experiences in virtual and real environments using virtual embodiments.
www: http://real.cs.tut.ac.jp/
|
 |
Prof Hiroshi Ashida (Kyoto University, Japan)
Hiroshi is a researcher in Department of Psychology, Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University (Japan), studying visual perception and illusions by using psychophysics and MRI. He is recently interested in the effects of global motion (optic flow) on perception of self motion and control of body posture, and conducting experiments with a PhD student by using virtual-reality HMD products. He is also getting more interested in auditory perception, and starting some projects with another student on visual-auditory interactions. He is also participating studies on perceptual and cognitive factors in driving cars at ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communication Laboratories.
www: https://www.psy.bun.kyoto-u.ac.jp/ashida/
|
 |
Prof Kenzo Sakurai (Tohoku Gakuin University, Japan)
Kenzo is a psychology professor of Tohoku Gakuin University, Sendai, Japan. He received his Ph.D. from Tohoku University where he started his studies on perceptual alternation in vision (binocular rivalry; depth reversal in the hollow-face illusion). His current research interest is human visual perception with body motion, especially depth perception from motion parallax, and multisensory integration in self-motion perception. He is also working on some visual illusions (visual phantoms; shape distortion illusion; stream-bounce effect). He is the first researcher who introduced a virtual reality set-up into experimental psychology in Japan in 1990.
www: https://www.tohoku-gakuin.ac.jp/en/
|
 |
Prof Ichiro Kuriki (Saitama University, Japan)
Ichiro is interested in the mechanisms of human visual system, especially color vision, and studied combining psychophysical and functional brain- imaging methods (mainly fMRI and EEG). He started vision-science studies at Tokyo Institute of Technology and made Ph.D. Following a long tenure at Tohoku University, he was appointed to Professor at Saitama University in 2021. He has been developing a VR environment to study the basic functionality and mechanisms of human visual system in relation to environmental situations.
www: http://s-read.saitama-u.ac.jp/researchers/
|
 |
A/Prof Takehiro Nagai (Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan)
Takehiro is a senior research scientist at the Department of Information and Communications Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology. He is interested in the basic mechanisms of visual perception and cognition, especially those mechanisms underlying colour perception, material perception, and our interaction with the surrounding environment. Takehiro generally uses psychophysical experiments to elucidate these psychological/physiological mechanisms, but also utilises other approaches, including image manipulation and computational modelling. Currently, his main research motivation is to identify the temporal dynamics of cortical image processing for the perception of surface qualities and affective experience.
www: https://sites.google.com/view/tokyotech-ice-nagailab-e/
|
 |
A/Prof Kowa Koida (Toyohashi University of Technology, Japan)
Kowa is an Associate Professor at Electronics-Inspired Interdisciplinary Research Institute (EIIRIS), Toyohashi University of Technology, Japan. He is interested in visual phenomena and the neurophysiological basis of perception and cognition. He uses psychophysics to examine visual illusions of colour and material, and he uses single unit recording in animal models to study neuronal representations of visual information during performance of cognitive tasks. Kowa graduated from Tokyo Institute of Technology and received a PhD in human psychophysics. He performed electrophysiology and animal behavioural studies at National Institute of Physiological Sciences in Okazaki, as well as the Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University.
www: http://www.eiiris.tut.ac.jp/koida/
|
 |
Prof Shinji Nakamura (Nihon Fukushi University, Japan)
Shinji is Professor of Department of Education and Psychology, Nihon Fukushi University, Japan. He started psychophysical studies on human self-motion perception at Toyota Motor Corporation in 1992 and received his PhD degree in 2002 from Nagoya University. Since that time, Professor Nakamura has continued to undertake his research on the perceptual mechanisms underlying visually induced self-motion perception, also known as vection. His research interests also include color perception and observer judgments of color preference.
www: https://www.n-fukushi.ac.jp/
|
Graduate members
 |
Wilson Luu (UNSW Sydney, Australia)
Wilson graduated from UNSW with a Bachelor of Optometry (Hons)/Bachelor of Science in 2015. Since graduating, Wilson has worked as a staff optometrist at private practices in rural NSW and metropolitan Sydney, clinic supervisor at UNSW as well as travelled overseas to provide eye care to the Nepalese Everest community. He has also held positions on the Young Optometrists NSW/ACT executive team and has been a speaker at several of their events. He is currently exploring the application of virtual reality in patients with eye disease at the Centre for Eye Health. He has interests in ocular pathology and advancements in technology to be used in eye care.
www: https://www.centreforeyehealth.com.au/
|
 |
Rahm Ranjan (University of New South Wales, Australia)
Rahm is a physiotherapist with a passion for artificial intelligence, computer vision and immersive virtual reality and how these technologies can be used to improve health. As a clinician with over 10 years of experience in paediatrics, aged care, acute hospital, rehabilitation and sports medicine, Rahm endeavours to explore, understand, and validate their use in health care with the hope of making health services more accessible to every individual.
www: https://www.optometry.unsw.edu.au/.../sensory-processes-research-laboratory/
|
 |
Harin Hapuarachchi (Toyohashi University of Technology, Japan)
Harin is a PhD candidate in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Toyohashi University of Technology. Since 2019, he has been a member of the Visual Psychophysics Laboratory under the guidance of Professor Michiteru Kitazaki. Utilizing techniques such as virtual co-embodiment, full-body motion capture, and immersive Virtual Reality, he conducts psychophysics experiments to explore how multisensory integration may enhance the sense of embodiment towards partner-controlled and autonomous limbs. Currently, he is also involved in a collaborative effort with Professor Juno Kim to investigate the perception of self-motion and embodiment during virtual walking with autonomous legs.
www: https://researchmap.jp/HarinHapuarachchi
|
 |
Yuyang (Mia) Cai (University of New South Wales, Australia)
Yuyang (Mia) Cai’s completed her undergraduate degree in Optometry from Tianjin Medical University, China. She recently commenced postgraduate studies in Optometry at the University of New South Wales. Mia’s research interests are concerned with understanding: the effects of specular roughness on the perception of color and opacity; the effects of stereopsis in head-mounted displays (HMDs); and the importance of surface reflectance and illumination on visual perception of real and virtual scenes.
www: https://www.optometry.unsw.edu.au/.../sensory-processes-research-laboratory/
|
 |
Masakazu Ohara (Toyohashi University of Technology, Japan)
Masakazu graduated from Toyohashi University of Technology (TUT) with a Bachelor of Engineering in 2016. In 2017, Masakazu enrolled in the Leading Graduate School Program R03 of MEXT which is a 5-year doctoral program offered at TUT and concurrently commenced a joint project with Dr Juno Kim at UNSW Sydney. Since 2020, Masakazu has worked as a research assistant in A/Prof Kowa Koida’s laboratory. His current research interests are to (1) identify the relationships between surface optics and 3D shape perception, and (2) apply image analysis techniques to understand how our brains process images of objects in virtual reality and the real world.
www: https://sites.google.com/view/koidalab/members/masakazu-ohara
|
 |
Daiki Yamasaki (Ritsumeikan University, Japan)
Daiki is a postdoc researcher in College of Comprehensive Psychology, Ritsumeikan University, Japan. He received his Ph.D. from Kyoto University in 2020 (Vision Lab, headed by Prof. Ashida). His research interests include vision, audition, and multisensory interaction in spatiotemporal perception, especially distance, depth, and looming motion. Using psychophysical and behavioral experiments, Daiki examines audiovisual perception of proximal space (personal/peripersonal) and unseen space (i.e., behind the body), and auditory influences on visual ventral/dorsal processing. Currently, he is also working on face and voice perception in interpersonal situations.
www: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Daiki-Yamasaki/
|
 |
Elizabeth Chen (University of New South Wales, Australia)
Elizabeth is currently working as a clinical optometrist in regional NSW in private practice and outreach clinics. Elizabeth graduated from UNSW with a Bachelor of Science (Vision Science) in 2016 and Master of Clinical Optometry in 2018. She leads research examining how clinical assessment of the optic nerve can be improved in virtual reality, which has appeared in Frontiers in Virtual Reality.
www: https://www.optometry.unsw.edu.au/.../sensory-processes-research-laboratory
|