[CS] Jas Brooks Dissertation Defense/Mar 27, 2025

[via cs]

This is an announcement of Jas Brooks's Dissertation Defense.
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Candidate: Jas Brooks

Date: Thursday, March 27, 2025

Time:  2 pm CST

Location: JCL 346

Title: Expanding Human & Computer Senses through Perceptual Engineering

Abstract: Imagine a future where sensory experiences are as easily customizable as adjusting phone settings—reducing sweetness to encourage healthier eating, modulating perceived temperature for comfort, or extending sensory range to detect imperceptible noxious gases. Despite the transformative potential of such advancements, today's computer interfaces struggle to integrate rich and intimate senses like temperature, touch, taste, and smell due to persistent challenges such as power inefficiency, miniaturization difficulties, and the inability to target specific sensory effects.
I argue that entirely new interfacing techniques are needed. To address these barriers, I focus on perceptual engineering—the design and implementation of interfaces that precisely alter sensory mechanisms to systematically alter perception in a controlled and reproducible manner. My research first explores this through chemical interfaces, a new class of wearable systems that induce sensory feedback by interacting directly with the body's chemical pathways. Unlike traditional mechanical stimulation or sensory substitution, chemical interfaces are power-efficient, versatile, and selective: they reduce energy consumption for temperature feedback (CHI'20 Best Paper), create diverse haptic sensations with a single miniaturized actuator (UIST'21), and precisely modify taste, such as reducing sweetness perception to promote healthier diets (UIST'23 Demo Honorable Mention).

However, perceptual engineering extends beyond chemical interactions. My work demonstrates that this approach generalizes across multiple stimulation modalities—from electrical stimulation of the septum to evoke smell-like sensations (CHI'21) to thermal modulation of the nose that alters perceived airflow (UIST'24). These interfaces not only overcome technical limitations but also open new possibilities in health, training, and immersive experiences. For example, taste retargeting offers a novel approach to improve eating habits (UIST'23), stereo-smell could enable users to detect and localize harmful gases in high-risk environments (CHI'21), and interfaces that make one feel like they are breathing more air than they actually inhale could support health interventions like anxiety management or improved face mask compliance (UIST'24).
Perceptual engineering lays the foundation for the future I envision where users can actively shape their perceptions to improve health, enhance comfort, and enrich their interactions with both digital and physical environments

Advisors: Pedro Lopes

Committee Members: Pedro Lopes, Pattie Maes, Tanzeem Choudhury and Ben Zhao