News & blog on NUILab — Natural User Interaction Laboratory · An XR & Human-Centered AI Lab

New NSF award: translating the science of learning into virtual reality

Wed, 01 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The lab is part of a new NSF I-USE collaborative award: Improving Conceptual Understanding of Invisible Physics by Translating the Science of Learning into Virtual Reality Environments ($750,000, 2025–2028), with Dr. Ortega serving as co-PI.

The project asks how virtual reality can make invisible physics — the forces, fields, and waves students can’t see — graspable, by translating what we know about how people learn into the design of immersive environments. It connects directly to the lab’s XR Training & Education work.

Ortega receives NSF CAREER award for multimodal interaction research

Mon, 18 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The National Science Foundation has awarded Dr. Francisco R. Ortega a CAREER grant to advance the science of multimodal and microgesture interaction. The five-year project investigates how small, low-effort hand movements — combined with speech and gaze — can drive augmented and virtual reality interfaces that feel natural and stay accessible.

CAREER awards are among NSF’s most competitive, recognizing early-career faculty who integrate outstanding research with education. A core thread of the project is undergraduate research: students from across Colorado State University will help design and run the interaction studies.

Virtual nature: testing VR forest bathing for stress and recovery

Mon, 22 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

A new strand of the lab’s health work asks a simple question: can a carefully designed virtual forest deliver some of the restorative effect of the real thing? Building on research into attention restoration, we are prototyping VR “forest bathing” experiences and measuring their effect on stress and cognitive recovery.

The work connects to the lab’s broader interest in XR for human good — using immersive technology not as spectacle, but as a tool for mental health, focus, and wellbeing. Study design emphasizes comfort, reduced motion, and access for participants who are new to VR.

AR visual search and cognitive load: an update from the ONR work

Thu, 09 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Our Office of Naval Research project studies how people search for and attend to information through augmented reality displays — and what that costs them cognitively. When an interface layers digital cues over the real world, where does attention actually go, and when does the overlay help versus hurt?

Recent sessions focused on how cue density and placement affect visual search time and error. Findings are feeding into design guidance for AR interfaces that respect the limits of human attention rather than overwhelming it. A paper is in preparation; we will post the author copy here once it is accepted.