About The Project:
In the first 8 months of the project we were able to establish a proof-of-concept showing a high resolution, wireless surface electromyography (sEMG) recordings during VR engagement combined with eye-tracking. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of a system capable of recording internal states during a VR task. Figure 1 shows the 16 channel wireless facial EMG with the VR headset on a participant face.
We show for the first time the ability to identify different expressions with the unique sEMG electrodes while wearing the VR headset. Figure 2 shows differential signals for different facial expressions during a calibration phase: closed smile, open smile, disgust and anger.
In the past 8 months we developed a dynamic VR task (Figure 3) using the Unity software. The VR task induces positive internal states (For example a cute creature, Figure 3A, 3B top) and allows to compare these responses to the response to neutral (geometric, Figures 3A, 3B bottom) figures in a controlled fashion. While participants explore a house using head movements within the VR task, animals and control objects appear in pre-defined random places.