Presenter: Felix Kabo, Research Director at CannonDesign
This talk focuses on an underexplored research frontier: using neuroscience and immersive extended-reality (XR) environments to capture how the built environment impacts the human brain and cognitive functioning. Specifically, Kabo will explore oculometrics or the neuroscience of eye movements, why the eyes serve as powerful biomarkers of brain health and cognition, and how eye movements engage nearly every major brain region involved in attention, memory, processing speed, and executive function. Related to this, he will describe how neuroFit’s NASA-developed eye-movement assessment provides a fast, non-invasive way to quantify cognitive function inside VR/XR.
Following that, Kabo will briefly go through the experimental protocols developed for the neuroscience study, including (especially) the protocols running in the Magic Leap (e.g., pre- and post-exposure nFit assessments, virtual environments, etc.) and the Alternate Uses Test (AUT) for creativity assessment. He will explain how these protocols allow us to capture real-time cognitive responses to biophilic and non-biophilic built environments, which is superior to traditional 2D renderings and verbal feedback. Finally, he will highlight the broader implications of the study for the design disciplines, students and participants, and organizations and society at large.
Dr. Felix Kabo is the firmwide R&D Director at CannonDesign, and the Senior Impact Designer in Residence, BUSINESS+IMPACT, Ross School of Business, University of Michigan. His work integrates disciplines such as the spatial and social sciences, and tools such as network analysis and RTLS/XR technologies, to study the built environment’s impacts on wicked problems related to e.g., aging, collaboration & innovation, health & wellness, etc. A trained architect, researcher, and design thinker, Felix has led cross-sectoral research initiatives in industry and academia, contributing to projects awarded more than $45 million in competitive funding. His research has been published in journals spanning multiple disciplines, including Environment and Behavior, Research Policy, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, Nursing Outlook, Environment & Planning B, Automation in Construction, Innovation in Aging, etc. Felix received his PhD in Architecture (Design Studies + Organizational Studies) from the Rackham Graduate School at the University of Michigan.
Presented by the Center for eXtended Reality in partnership with Mary Ann Mavrinac Studio X. The Voices of XR speaker series is made possible by Kathy McMorran Murray.
