» Position
I am an ICREA Research Professor at the University of Barcelona in the EVENT Lab. I founded the Virtual Environments and Computer Graphics group in the Department of Computer Science, University College London, where I still have several projects and PhD students.
» Contact details
Mel Slater
Facultat de Psicologia. Universitat de Barcelona Campus de Mundet - Edifici Teatre
Passeig de la Vall d'Hebron, 171 08035-Barcelona
Telephones:
+34 93 403 9618 Office
+34 934 021 362 Fax
email: melslater@ub.edu
» Research Interests
My main research interest is to radically extend the boundaries of virtual reality. I am interested in applications that involve simulations of social situations that are difficult or impossible to realise in physical reality, even to the extent of transforming the very body of the participant. This research borders on neuroscience, in the area of body representation - dealing with the question of how the brain represents the body, how a distinction is made between what is and what is not part of the body. I also remain interested in the issue of presence in virtual reality. Under what conditions do people tend to respond realistically to virtual situations and events? I have distinguished between two dimensions of this - 'place illusion' the strong illusion of being in the virtual place, and 'plausibility' the illusion that the events that are occurring there are really happening. A new methodology based on these notions has recently been published. I lead the eventLab in Barcelona, which is a computer science group located in the Faculty of Psychology at the University of Barcelona. Our research is both on the technical side concerning new advances in computer graphics and virtual reality related work, and the scientific side related to body representation and presence. Please contact me for further information.
