Ulysses Bernardet

I’m a lecturer at Aston University, Birmingham, UK. I hold a doctorate in psychology from the University of Zurich, and have a background in psychology, computer science and neurobiology. I’m the main author of the large-scale neural systems simulator iqr, have developed models of insect cognition, and conceptualized and realized a number of complex, real-time interactive systems. My research follows an interdisciplinary approach that brings together psychological and neurobiological models of behavior regulation, motivation, and emotion with mixed and virtual reality. At the core of my current research interests is the development of models of personality and nonverbal communication. These models are embodied in virtual humans and interact with biological humans in real-time. I like to refer to this approach of “understanding humans by building them” as Synthetic Psychology.
Contact: bernuly@gmail.com
Position: Lecturer, Aston University UK
Research
Our affective real-time 3D AI virtual human project with face emotion recognition, movement recognition and full AI talking, gesture and reasoning.
BioSensing 2D / 3D / VR Systems
Our lab has extensive experience in using different sensing technology including eye tracking and facial emotion recognition (DiPaola et al 2013), as well as gesture tracking and heart rate and EDA bio sensing (Song & DiPaola, 2015) to affect generative computer graphics systems.
Publications

Speech Breathing in Virtual Humans: An Interactive Model and Empirical Study
Conference Proceedings: 2019 IEEE Virtual Humans and Crowds for Immersive Environments (VHCIE), March 24, 2019 2019
pp. 1-9. DOI: 10.1109/VHCIE.2019.8714737
Osaka, Japan
IEEE

An Eye Gaze Model for Controlling the Display of Social Status in Believable Virtual Humans
Conference Proceedings: IEEE Computational Intelligence and Games (CIG) , 2018

A Dynamic Speech Breathing System for Virtual Characters
Conference Proceedings: International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents, August 2017
pp. 43-52. Part of the Lecture Notes in Computer Science book series (LNCS, volume 10498)

m+m: A novel Middleware for Distributed, Movement based Interactive Multimedia Systems
Conference Proceedings: 3rd International Symposium on Movement and Computing, July 2016
Article No. 21
Thessaloniki, GA, Greece
ACM

Simulink Toolbox for Real-time Virtual Character Control
Conference Proceedings: Intelligent Virtual Agents, 2016
Los Angeles, CA, USA
Springer
An Architecture for Biologically Grounded Real-time Reflexive Behavior
Conference Proceedings: Intelligent Virtual Agents, 2016
Los Angeles, CA, USA
Springer
A Framework for Exogenous and Endogenous Reflexive Behavior in Virtual Characters
Conference Proceedings: Intelligent Virtual Agents, 2015
Delft, The Netherlands
Springer

A model for social spatial behavior in virtual characters
Journal Article: Computer Animation and Virtual Worlds Journal, 2015
Special Issue on Action Selection. Vol 15, No 1, pp 99-113, DOI: 10.1002/cav.1600
Wiley Online Library

An Architecture for Personality-Based, Nonverbal Behavior in Affective Virtual Humanoid Character
Journal Article: Procedia Computer Science. Special Issue: Bio Inspired Cognitive Architectures, 2014
Vol 41, pp. 204-211