Timothy McNamara

profile

Position:

Professor and Vice Provost

Contact:

T.McNamara at vanderbilt.edu
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/psychological_sciences/bio/timothy-mcnamara

Affiliations:

Vanderbilt University, Psychology

Biography

Projects

Embodied Self-Motion Illusions in VR

Embodied Self-Motion Illusions in VR

How can we provide humans with a believable sensation of being in and moving through computer-generated environments (like VR, computer games, or movies) without the need for costly and cumbersome motion platforms or large free-space walking areas? That is, how can we "cheat intelligently" by providing a compelling, embodied self-motion illusion ("vection") without the need for full physical mo...

By bernhard riecke, daniel feuereissen, timothy mcnamara & john rieser Read more
Navigational Search in VR: Do we need to walk?

Navigational Search in VR: Do we need to walk?

Do we need full physical motions for effective navigation through Virtual Environments? Recent results suggest that translations might not be as important as previously believed, which could enable us to reduce overall simulation effort and cost Physical rotations and translations are the basic constituents of navigation behavior, yet there is mixed evidence about their relative importance for co...

By bernhard riecke, bobby bodenheimer, daniel feuereissen, timothy mcnamara & john rieser Read more
Spatial Cognition in VR vs. real world

Spatial Cognition in VR vs. real world

Comparing spatial perception/cognition in real versus immersive virtual environments: it doesn't compare! Virtual reality (VR) is increasingly used in psychological research and applications – but does VR really afford natural human spatial perception/cognition, which is a prerequisite for effective spatial behavior? Using judgment of relative direction (JRD) tasks, Riecke & McNamara (Psychonom...

By bernhard riecke, lonnie hastings, timothy mcnamara & dinara moura Read more

Publications

Riecke, B., Bodenheimer, B., McNamara, T., Williams, B., Peng, P., & Feuereissen, D. (2010). Do We Need to Walk for Effective Virtual Reality Navigation? Physical Rotations Alone May Suffice. In C. Hölscher, T. Shipley, M. Olivetti Belardinelli, J. Bateman, & N. Newcombe (Eds.), Spatial Cognition VII (Vol. 6222, pp. 234–247). Springer Berlin / Heidelberg.
Riecke, B. E., & McNamara, T. P. (2017). Where you are affects what you can easily imagine: Environmental geometry elicits sensorimotor interference in remote perspective taking. Cognition, 169, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2017.07.014
Riecke, B. E., & McNamara, T. P. (2017). Where you are affects what you can easily imagine: Environmental geometry elicits sensorimotor interference in remote perspective taking. Cognition, 169, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2017.07.014
Riecke, B. E., Feuereissen, D., Rieser, J. J., & McNamara, T. P. (2015). More than a Cool Illusion? Functional Significance of Self-Motion Illusion (Circular Vection) for Perspective Switches. Frontiers in Psychology, 6(1174), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01174
Riecke, B. E., Feuereissen, D., Rieser, J. J., & McNamara, T. P. (2012). Self-Motion Illusions (Vection) in VR – Are They Good For Anything? IEEE Virtual Reality 2012, 35–38. https://doi.org/10.1109/VR.2012.6180875
Riecke, B. E., & McNamara, T. P. (2007). An integrative theory of spatial orientation in the immediate environment. Proceedings of the 29th Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci), 1845. Google Scholar.
Peng, P., Riecke, B. E., Williams, B., McNamara, T. P., & Bodenheimer, B. (2008). Navigation modes in virtual environments: walking vs. joystick. Proceedings of the 5th Symposium on Applied Perception in Graphics and Visualization, 192. https://doi.org/http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1394281.1394321
Riecke, B. E., Feuereissen, D., Rieser, J. J., & McNamara, T. P. (2011). Spatialized sound enhances biomechanically-induced self-motion illusion (vection). Proceedings of the 2011 Annual Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2799–2802. https://doi.org/10.1145/1978942.1979356
Bodenheimer, B., Feuereissen, D., Williams, B., Peng, P., McNamara, T., & Riecke, B. (2009). Locomotion for navigation in virtual environments: Walking, turning, and joystick modalities compared. Journal of Vision, 9(8), 1126. https://doi.org/10.1167/9.8.1126
Riecke, B. E., Feuereissen, D., Rieser, J. J., & McNamara, T. P. (2014). Can self-motion illusions (circular vection) facilitate spatial updating? [Poster]. Spatial Cognition 2014 Conference, Bremen, Germany. http://conference.spatial-cognition.de/SC2014/
Riecke, B. E., & McNamara, T. P. (2007). Spatial Orientation in the Immediate Environment: How Can the Different Theories be Reconciled? [Poster]. 10. Tübingen Perception Conference (TWK), Tübingen, Germany.
Riecke, B. E., & McNamara, T. P. (2007). Similarity Between Room Layouts Causes Orientation-Specific Sensorimotor Interference in To-Be-Imagined Perspective Switches [Poster]. 48th Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society (Psychonomics).