International Conference

Virtual Reality

Cognitive Foundations — Technological Issues — Philosophical Implications

September 20-22, 2001, Vienna, Austria

Organized by the Austrian Society for Cognitive Science
and the Austrian Society for Organismic and Systemic Research and Theory

Proceedings | Program | Purpose | Session Topics | Invited Speakers | Conference Language | Scientific Committee | Organizing Committee | Sponsoring Organizations | Registration and Fees | Conference Site and Accomodation | Destination Vienna | Additional Information | Registration Form

NEW: Proceedings

The proceedings of the conference were published with Peter Lang Verlag in Frankfurt. A detailed overview with abstracts can be found here. It also includes a contact address for ordering preprints.

Program

A PDF document with all the abstracts is also available.
All talks will be held at the Naturhistorisches Museum. Please refer to the map of the conference site and how to reach it.

Thursday, Sept 20, 2001
Virtuality in Cognition, Neuroscience & Psychology

8.45 Registration. The registration desk will stay open through the whole conference
9.30 Opening
9.45 Markus F. Peschl and Alexander Riegler
Virtual Science: Virtuality and Knowledge Acquisition in Science and Cognition
10.30 Shulamith Kreitler
Psychological Perspectives on Virtual Reality
11.30 Coffee
11.50 Karl Edlinger
Virtual Reality, Cyberspace and Living Organisms: Towards a New Understanding of Perception and Cognition?
12.30 Lunch
14.30 Peter König
Simulated Learning and Learning in Simulated Environments
15.30 Günther Fleck
Mental Imagery and Cyberspace: Naturally and Artificially Generated Virtual Worlds
16.10 Coffee
16.30 Steffen P. Walz and Isabel Zundel
Madness & Virtuality: An Approximation
17.10 Cecilia Sik-Lányi et al.
The Amelioration of Perception of Space and Depth by the Help of Virtual Reality
20.00 Reception / Heuriger

Friday, Sept 21, 2001
Technological Applications & Virtuality

9.30 Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann and Sumedha Kshirsagar
The Emotional Talking Virtual Humans
10.30 Coffee
10.50 Rolf Ewers et al.
Computed Navigation in Cranio-Maxillo-Facial and Oral Head and Neck Surgery: Principles, Indications and Potentials for Telepresence and Teleassistance
11.50 Corina Sas, Ronan Reilly and Gregory O'Hare
Virtual Reality in Surgery: Between Satisfaction and Stress
12.30 Lunch
14.30 Chris Stary
Exploring the Concept of Virtuality: Technological Approaches and Implications from Tele-Education
15.30 Daniel Mellet d'Huart
From Reality to "the Real": Using Augmented Virtual Reality for Training
16.10 Coffee
16.30 Ashweeni Kumar Beeharee, Steve Pettifer and Adrian West
A Framework for Optimising Network Usage for Plausible Distributed Virtual Environments
17.10 Gerardo Silva Chandía
VR and Web Page Support in Civil Engineering Education (Experience Report)
18.30 General Meeting / Generalversammlung of the Austrian Society for Cognitive Science (location TBA)

Saturday, Sept 22, 2001
Philosophical Aspects of Virtuality

10.00 László Ropolyi
Virtuality and Plurality
11.00 Coffee
11.20 Stephen E. Robbins
Bergson's Virtual Action
12.00 Andrea Gaugusch
(Re)constructing (Virtual) Reality
12.40 Lunch
14.40 Rainer Born
Virtual Reality: Reflections Of Chances, Changes and Dangers in Communicating Knowledge with the Help of VR-Technologies
15.20 Coffee
15.40 William Keays
Rethinking Boundaries
16.40 Plenary Discussion

Purpose

The goal of this single-track conference is to investigate and discuss new approaches and developments in the field of virtual reality with regard to its cognitive and philosophical issues and technological implications in a workshop-like atmosphere.

Virtuality is omnipresent nowadays - this conference aims at bringing together scientists from various disciplines in order to clarify the concept of virtuality; new approaches to this phenomenon should be investigated from an interdisciplinary perspective. Both, theoretical foundations (from the disciplines of philosophy, cognitive science, psychology, biology, artificial life, or the social sciences) and technological implications and applications in various fields should be integrated.

Contrary to many conferences in this field, the focus is on interdisciplinary cooperation and on integrating conceptual and epistemological questions, rather than on technical details. We are trying to achieve this by giving more room to discussion and interaction between the participants (e.g., invited comments on papers, distribution of papers to the participants before the conference, etc.). According to the interdisciplinary character of cognitive science, we welcome papers/talks from the fields of virtual reality, cognitive science, artificial life, empirical, cognitive, and computational neuroscience, philosophy (of mind/science), epistemology, education, biology, medical research, anthropology, computer science, psychology, and linguistics.

Session Topics

This conference will be centered around (but not limited to) the following topics:

Invited Speakers

Rolf Ewers : AKH Vienna, virtual operations, Austria
Bill Keays : Ottawa, Media Arts, Canada/Switzerland
Peter König : ETH/Univ Zurich, Neuroscience, Switzerland
Shulamith Kreitler : Psychology, Tel-Aviv University, Israel
Laszlo Ropolyi : Philosophy of Science, Eotvos Lorand University, Budapest, Hungary
Christian Stary : Communications Engineering, Univ. Linz, Austria
Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann : Univ. Geneva, MIRALab, Switzerland

Conference Language

English

Scientific Committee

Rainer Born : Univ. Linz, A
Karl Edlinger : Naturhistorisches Museum Wien, A
Rolf Ewers : AKH Vienna, virtual operations, Austria
Walter Feigl : Univ. Vienna, A
Günther Fleck : Heerespsychologischer Dienst, A
Giselher Guttmann : Univ. Vienna, A
Bill Keays : Ottawa, Media Arts, Canada/Switzerland
Peter König : ETH/Univ Zurich, Neuroscience, Switzerland
Shulamith Kreitler : Tel-Aviv University, Israel
Markus Peschl : Univ. Vienna, A
Alexander Riegler : Free Univ. of Brussels, B
Brigitte Römmer : Sysis Interactive Simulations AG, Vienna, A
Laszlo Ropolyi : Eotvos Lorand University, Budapest, H
Christian Stary : Univ. Linz, A
Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann : Univ. Geneva, MIRALab, Switzerland

Organizing Committee

Karl Edlinger : Naturhistorisches Museum Wien, A
Walter Feigl : Univ. Vienna, A
Günther Fleck : Heerespsychologischer Dienst, A
 : Univ. Vienna, A
Alexander Riegler : Free Univ. of Brussels, B
Brigitte Römmer : Sysis Internet Software, Vienna, A

Sponsoring Organizations

Registration and Fees
until
June 30, 2001		after
June 30, 2001
Members of either society (Austrian Society for Cognitive Science or Austrian Society for organismisc and systemic research and theory) 800 ATS
58 EUR		1100 ATS
80 EUR
Non members 1100 ATS
80 EUR		1300 ATS
94,5 EUR
Student Members of either society (Austrian Society for Cognitive Science or Austrian Society for organismisc and systemic research and theory) (proof of valid student ID required) 300 ATS
22 EUR		400 ATS
29 EUR
Non student members (proof of valid student ID required) 400 ATS
29 EUR		500 ATS
36 EUR

The registration fee includes admission to talks, presentations, and proceedings (except student fees).

All payments have to be made in ATS (Austrian Schillings).

Conference Site and Accomodation

The conference takes place in the famous Museum of Natural History in the very center of Vienna; the address is:

Naturhistorisches Museum Wien (main entrance)
Burgring 7 (at the Maria Theresienplatz)
A-1010 Wien
Austria

It is located in the center of the city and is surrounded by the most beautiful buildings of the city of Vienna. Please refer to the map of the conference site and how to reach it.

As for the accomodation, we recommend the following hotels:

Close to the conference site In the green area of Vienna
Hotel/Pension Museum Hotel Jäger
Museumstr 3 Hernalser Hauptstraße 187
A-1070 Wien A-1170 Wien
Tel: +43 1 / 523 44 26-0 Tel: +43 1 486 66 20 0
Fax: +43 1 / 523-4426/30 Fax: +43 1 486 66 20 8
e-mail: hotel.museum@surfeu.at e-mail: hoteljaeger@aon.at

You can find more information about Vienna and accommodation at the Vienna Tourist Board or at the Intropa Travel agent Tel: +43-1-5151-242.

Destination Vienna

Vienna, Austria, can be reached internationally by plane or train. The Vienna Schwechat airport is located about 16 km from the city center. From the airport, the city air-terminal "Landstraße/Wien Mitte" can be reached by the Air Terminal Shuttle Bus (every 20 min, 70 ATS/5 EUR, tickets on the bus). From there, take either the U3 or U4 subway to continue. A taxi to the city center is about 400 ATS/30 EUR. Rail-passengers arrive at one of the main stations which are located almost in the city center. From the air-terminal and the railway stations the congress site and hotels can be reached easily by underground (U-Bahn), tramway, or bus. A detailed description will be given to the participants.

Public Transportation in Vienna

We would recommend that you buy a general ticket 72 Stunden Wien for 150 ATS/10.90 EUR or a 8 Tage Umwelt Streifennetzkarte for 300 ATS/21.80 EUR which allows you to use any means of public transportation for 72 hours or 8 days respectively (as often as you want). Tickets are available in main subway stations and press shops. Please note that the above mentioned tickets are not valid for the transfer from the airport to the city! For further information have a look at the time-table of public transport in Vienna.

More information about Vienna and Austria on the web:

Additional Information

For further information on the conference contact:

Accomodation:
Markus Peschl
Dept. for Philosophy of Science
and Social Studies of Science
University of Vienna
Sensengasse 8/10
A-1090 Wien, Austria

Tel: +43-1-4277-47624, Fax: +43-1-4277-9476
Email: franz-markus.peschl@univie.ac.at

 or:  Conference site:
Karl Edlinger
Naturhistorisches Museum
3. Zoologische Abteilung
Burgring 7
A-1014 Wien
Austria

Tel: +43-1-52177-516
Email: karl.edlinger@nhm-wien.ac.at

General information about the Austrian Society for Cognitive Science can be found on the Society webpage

Registration Form

Find below the web-based registration form for the conference. Fields in bold are required to fill in. If you do not want to submit your credit card information via the web (this is not a secured connnection), you can alternatively print out the registration form and fax it to the organizers.

Last update: 27 Jun 2007 by Alex Riegler