Using VR Tools Today
VR Brings Hope
by Ben Delaney

This article first appeared in CyberEdge Journal #7, January/Februaty 1992. © 1992 CyberEdge Information Services, Inc.

We recently had a chance to visit two laboratories in Southern California where some very exciting research into the use of VR tools and technology is being done. The common thread between these labs is that VR is being used today to help diagnose and treat illness, and to empower people with handicaps.

Perceptual psycho physics

At Loma Linda University Medical Center we met with Dave Warner, a Medical Neuroscientist at the Neurology Research Center. We spent over two hours with him and Jeff Sale, Medical Research Scientist, at what Warner characterizes as The Center for Really Neat Research. They explained and demonstrated how VR tools, main stream diagnostic methodology, and specialized data analysis techniques can combine to advance the state of the art of diagnosis and treatment of neurological disorders. They have developed new techniques that enable medical researchers and physicians to see and understand hitherto invisible phenomena.

Dave Warner's mission is four fold:

• Defining quantitative physiometrics of human performance
• Developing tools for non linear dynamical analysis
• Developing techniques for augmentative communication for disabled persons
• Developing technologies for environmental control and telepresence.

He is developing what he calls "the microscope of psychiatry", and as he moves along this path he is forcing a paradigm shift, that may lead to new ways to deal with neurological injury, degeneration and congenital disability.

Warner describes his work as "perceptual psycho physics"; studying the correlation between brain activity and physical or sensory activity, such as movement or hearing. The interdisciplinary nature of this work is what sets the Loma Linda program apart, and is what Warner loves about what he does. Unique to Warner's work is his use of VR tools and techniques. He is uses a VPL DataGlove to record hand motion while simultaneously recording brain wave activity. He also uses a Convolvotron to input precise and repeatable sounds while recording the neurological activity taking place in the brain of the person hearing them. In both cases, the VR tools' data is combined with that from conventional EEG and other equipment.

In addition to seeing how a brain is working while it processes information, this methodology also permits Warner to quantitatively measure the effects of various treatment regimens. For example, using a DataGlove, he measures the tremors of a Parkinson's Disease patient's hand. Previously, tremors were evaluated on a subjective basis, with a physician observing and noting that a tremor was, "severe", or "mild". Using the glove, many different data points are recorded, representing the actual positions of the fingers, wrist and arm over the course of time. During and after treatment, new recordings are made and compared to the pretreatment recordings. Changes too subtle to be noticed by subjective observation, such as the often small changes caused by medication or degeneration, can be tracked, and therapy adjusted accordingly. Indeed, the measurements obtained are so superior to older techniques that new definitions of normalcy in brain activity are emerging, along with new, quantitative ways to measure the efficacy of medication. These techniques .promise dramatic improvement in the understanding and treatment of neurological problems.

Empowering the handicapped

On the other side of the Los Angeles Megalopolis, at the California State University at Northridge (CSUN), Dr. Harry Murphy heads up a program which is at once both more mundane and more rewarding. Working with Electrical Engineer Neil Scott and others, Murphy is responsible for applying technological tools to reducing the difficulties everyday life poses to the handicapped and disabled. Using largely off the shelf components and a great deal of ingenuity, Murphy and Scott make the world accessible and manageable to people whose problems range from mild learning disabilities to cerebral palsy or accident-caused paralysis. Interestingly, the average cost for these adaptive interfaces is under us$300 each.

Murphy's immediate responsibility is to administer the Disabled Students Services Program at CSUN, but he has expanded the scope of that mandate into major international networking efforts, and developing new devices to help his clients. In addition, he has overseen the establishment of a computer access lab which is valued at over us$300,000. This lab makes available computers, often specially equipped, to students with special needs.

The computer access lab was established with three goals: to promote the academic success of disabled students, to increase their employment potential, and to improve their employment success. These goals are accomplished by providing and developing assistive and adaptive devices for use by the program's clients.

Universal Access

Murphy and Scott recently established the Universal Access System (UAS) Project, aimed at establishing a standard computer interface that will accommodate the disabled in mainstream activities, and which also has implications for use by the general population as well.

Scott, who heads the UAS Project, has been at the lab for about 4-1/2 years. He is an engineer who specializes in developing devices to assist those who are blind or visually impaired, those with physical disabilities and those with learning disabilities. The UAS addresses these and other problems.

UAS is a modular system that provides a consistent, standardized data link making any UAS equipped device a server, controlled by a remote accessor. Each person using the system will have a personal accessor; a modular front end system providing exactly the functionality they require, such as speech synthesis, large text readout or OCR. Scott hopes that virtually all computerized devices, including workstations, ATMs, appliances, elevators, and telephones will eventually be equipped as UAS servers. When we saw the system demonstrated by Scott, an IBM XT clone acting as UAS server needed only a 5K memory resident extension to the operating system. The accessor was a laptop computer. Accessors and servers will ultimately be linked with an infrared beam, but in the demo system we saw the link was hard wired. Data transfer between accessor and the UAS server is standardized, but the accessor manipulates the data in whatever manner the user requires. On the demo system, Scott ran WordPerfect word processing software on the XT, under the control of the laptop. The input to the laptop was everyday, spoken English, but to the XT, the commands appear as if they were typed on its keyboard. The laptop/accessor provided output in the form of synthesized speech. The heavy speech processing load is in the accessor, while the XT, or other UAS server, runs off the shelf software.

Scott has licensed the system for manufacture. He anticipates that the UAS can easily be reduced to one chip for inclusion in any information processing device. The implications for increased access for the handicapped are obvious. Scott assumes that once this system is in place, many people will wish to use it, to receive directions, instruction and other information. This information could be presented visually, verbally or through unique audio cues, using a head mounted display or other systems. There are myriad possibilities, and the hope brought by these developments is that anyone who wants to will be able to lead an interactive and productive life, limited only by their imagination.

CSUN is sponsoring the seventh annual, Technology and Persons with Disabilities conference in March. This year for the first time, it will include a "mini conference" on Virtual Reality, featuring five presentations concerned with the use of VR technology in medical/therapeutic realms. We'll report on the proceedings in our May/June 1992 issue.

These are only two of the many laboratories working on using VR related technology in medical and biological fields. Like most such labs, these two are actively seeking collaborators and funding. They welcome contact from any interested parties.

Contacts: Dave Warner, Loma Linda University Medical Center, 11175 Mountain View Avenue, Suite O, Loma Linda, CA 923354 USA, 714 799 2150, FAX 714 799 2149.
Harry Murphy, Neil Scott, California State University, Northridge, 18111 Norhoff Street, DVSS, Northridge, CA 91330 USA, 818 885 2869, FAX 818 885 4929.

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