Carlos Alfredo Tirado Cortes

arXiv2026

Probing More-Than-Human Representation in Crisis Resilience Planning: An HCI Researcher Perspective

Crisis resilience planning raises urgent questions about how to include non-human species and ecological systems in participatory processes, which remain largely human-centred. This paper reports on a workshop with HCI researchers examining how more-than-human representation is approached in crisis contexts. The workshop combined scenario-based discussion with two design probes -- a voice-based conversational agent and an immersive embodied prototype -- to support sustained discussion of how emerging technologies shape engagement with non-human perspectives. Participants focused not on system usability, but on deliberating representational choices, such as voice, embodiment, and realism, and their potential role within participatory planning processes. The findings suggest that giving 'voice' to non-humans is not a neutral act of translation, but a design challenge that introduces tensions between legitimacy, authority, and authenticity. This paper provides empirical insight into how HCI researchers conceptualise more-than-human representation and positions crisis resilience planning as a critical site for examining AI- and immersion-mediated representation.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2023

An EEG-based Experiment on VR Sickness and Postural Instability While Walking in Virtual Environments

Previous studies showed that natural walking reduces the susceptibility to VR sickness. However, many users still experience VR sickness when wearing VR headsets that allow free walking in room-scale spaces. This paper studies VR sickness and postural instability while the user walks in an immersive virtual environment using an electroencephalogram (EEG) headset and a full-body motion capture system. The experiment induced VR sickness by gradually increasing the translation gain beyond the user's detection threshold. A between-group comparison between participants with and without VR sickness symptoms found some significant differences in postural stability but found none on gait patterns during the walking. In the EEG analysis, the group with VR sickness showed a reduction of alpha power, a phenomenon previously linked to a higher workload and efforts to maintain postural control. In contrast, the group without VR sickness exhibited brain activities linked to fine cognitive-motor control. The EEG result provides new insights into the postural instability theory: participants with VR sickness could maintain their postural stability at the cost of a higher cognitive workload. Our result also indicates that the analysis of lower-frequency power could complement behavioural data for continuous VR sickness detection in both stationary and mobile VR setups.

cs.HC↗