ABOUT ME
Nami Ogawa is a principal research scientist at DMM VR lab in Tokyo, Japan. She also works as a joint researcher at Virtual Reality Educational Research Center, The University of Tokyo (Amemiya Lab.). She completed her Ph.D. in Engineering at The University of Tokyo in Japan under the supervision of Michitaka Hirose, co-advised by Takuji Narumi.
Her research lies at the intersection of Virtual Reality (VR) and perceptual psychology. She is interested in how the embodiment of virtual avatars affects user experiences both perceptually and behaviorally in virtual environments.
■ Research Interests
In VEs, we handle virtual bodies with different sizes and characteristics from our actual bodies. I am considering how this affects the way we perceive the external world. Especially, I am focusing on the phenomenon that the scale of the self-body influences the scale of the world (body-based scaling). I am also examining the difference in the scale perception between the real and virtual environments.
■ Keywords
virtual reality, sense of body ownership, sense of agency, embodied perception, (self-)avatar, body-based scaling
■ CV: [PDF] (updated: Dec. 2019)
■ Selected Papers [link]
■ Interviews
■ Are you interested In collaborative research?
I am always looking for collaborative research opportunities! DMM VR lab actively promotes collaborative research with both academia and industry, and we offer a budget for research collaborations. For further information, please do not hesitate in contacting me!
LATEST NEWS
EDUCATION
APR. 2020 - current
APR. 2017 - MAR. 2020
JAN. 2018 - JUN. 2018
OCT. 2017 - NOV. 2017
APR. 2015 - MAR. 2017
APR. 2010 - MAR. 2015
RESEARCH PROJECTS
Effect of Self-Avatar Appearance on Facilitating Realistic Behavior in VEs
By hypothesizing that a greater sense of presence would discourage users from behaving unrealistically in virtual environments (VEs), we examined how self-avatar appearances affect users’ behaviors and showed the realistic full-body self-avatar was the most effective for enhancing realistic behaviors.
Keywords: Self-Avatar, Sense of Presence, Sense of Body Ownership
Effect of Avatar Appearance on Detection Thresholds for Remapped Hand Movements
The study showed that realistic virtual hands (vs. abstract) can increase the detection thresholds for remapping technique wherein virtual and physical movements are in conflict; realistic avatars can make remapping less noticeable for larger mismatches.
Keywords: Self-Avatar, Sense of Body Ownership, 3DUI
Virtual Co-embodiment: Sharing the Control of a Virtual Body among Two Individuals
We introduced a concept "virtual co-embodiment", which enables a user to share their virtual avatar with another entity and described a proof-of-concept in which two users can be immersed from 1PP in a VE and can have complementary levels of control over a shared avatar. We also conducted an experiment to investigate the influence of users' level of control over the shared avatar and prior knowledge of their actions (i.e., task types) on the users' sense of agency and motor actions.
Keywords: Sense of Agency
Virtual Hand Realism Affects Object Size Perception in Body-Based Scaling
Considering the theory that the scale of the external environment is perceived relative to the size of one's body, we hypothesized that self-avatar appearances affect how we perceive not only virtual bodies but also virtual spaces.
Therefore, this study examines how avatar anthropomorphism affects perceived object sizes as the size of the virtual hand changes. The results show that the size of the cube is perceived to be smaller when the virtual hand is enlarged only in the case of a realistic virtual hand.
Keywords: Self-Avatar, Sense of Body Ownership, Body-Based Scaling
Embodied Spatial Perception in VEs
To be Updated
Keywords: embodied perception, body-based scaling
DEMONSTRATIONS
Metamorphosis Hand
"Metamorphosis Hand" is a work that provides an experience of having an augmented body by enabling to play the piano with virtual hands whose shape, especially finger lengths, and movement are transforming dynamically.
From a psychological point of view, this system is a tool for investigating "Body Ownership", the conscious experience of the body as one's own.
I investigate how humans recognize their own bodies by causing illusion as if virtual bodies with different characteristics from their own physical bodies are as their own bodies.
From an artistic point of view, I made this work with the aim of creating new types of human-tool interaction.
In our long history, humans have invented tools that are fit for our constrained bodies and evolved ourselves by tool-use.
Now that we can invent our bodies that are fit for the existing tools by using VR technologies, resulting in a novel human-tool coevolution.
KEYWORDS: body ownership, body augmentation
Note: There are two versions of the device, each with a corresponding video.
Nami Ogawa, Yuki Ban, Sho Sakurai, Takuji Narumi, Tomohiro Tanikawa, Michitaka Hirose: Metamorphosis Hand: Dynamically Transforming Hands, The 7th International Conference on Augmented Human (AH2016), Geneva, Switzerland, Feb, 2016. [ACM Digital Library]
Swinging 3D Lamps
"Swinging 3D lamps" is a novel naked-eye 3D spatial augmented reality technology that makes a static 2D image look like 3D by adding only motion signals on it. It creates optical 3D illusions of motion parallax by superimposing luminance motion signals on a common picture in a real environment by using a projector. Our basic idea is to combine ”wiggle stereoscopy”, which is a phenomenon involving 3D perception by exploiting motion parallax with ”deformation lamps”, which is a projection technique to make static pictures dynamic.
KEYWORDS: 3D, Spatial AR, Projection, Wiggle Stereoscopy, Motion Parallax
Polyvision
4D space has always been a source of imagination and intellectual activities for human beings. By our novel visualization technique based on multiple 3D projections created in VR, Polyvision equips us with the sense of 4D letting us explore high dimensional data and mathematical objects in a totally new way.
PUBLICATIONS
This page contains only international activities. I'm also active domestically as well (especially exhibitions), so if you are interested in domestic activities, please visit my Japanese page. See also Google Scholar.
Journal Papers
Rebecca Fribourg*, Nami Ogawa*, Ludovic Hoyet, Ferran Argelaguet, Takuji Narumi, Michitaka Hirose, Anatole Lécuyer: Virtual Co-Embodiment: Evaluation of the Sense of Agency while Sharing the Control of a Virtual Body among Two Individuals, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 2020. (*: equally contributed) [PDF] [Presentation video] [DOI]
Daisuke Mine, Nami Ogawa, Takuji Narumi, and Kazuhiko Yokosawa. The relationship between the body and the environment in the virtual world: The interpupillary distance affects the body size perception, PLOS ONE, 15 (4), e0232290, 2020. [DOI]
Nami Ogawa, Takuji Narumi, Michitaka Hirose: Effect of Avatar Appearance on Detection Thresholds for Remapped Hand Movements, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 2020. [PDF] [Presentation Video] [DOI]
Peer-reviewed Conference Proceedings
Peer-reviewed Demos
Peer-reviewed Posters
Dissertation
Effect of Self-Avatar Anthropomorphism on Perception and Behavior in Virtual Environments, Jan. 2020 (defended date). [PDF] [Dean's Award]
Invited Talks, Non-archival Papers
Domestic Publications
Check here!
AWARDS / GRANTS
AWARDS
VRSJ Young Researchers Award at the Virtual Reality Society of Japan(日本バーチャルリアリティ学会 学術奨励賞)
GRANTS
ACADEMIC SERVICE
REVIEWER
COMMITTEE
MISC
SKILLS
PROGRAMMING
Major: C# (Unity)
Minor: Python, R
LANGUAGE
Japanese: Native
English: Intermediate (TOEIC 940)
Last updated: Feb 11th, 2021