Empathic Computing Laboratory

🎤 Keynote highlight from Digital Mental Health International Conference 2026 (DMH 2026)

Prof. Mark Billinghurst presented “Using Empathic Computing to Address Mental Health Issues” at DMH 2026, hosted at Tung Wah College (King’s Park Campus), Hong Kong.

Empathic computing brings together human-centred design, immersive technology, and affective/multimodal sensing — with exciting opportunities for real-world digital mental health impact.

Conference travel perk: a Kamakura side-quest ✨

During the NII Shonan Meeting, Mark took a break to visit Tsurugaoka Hachimangū Shrine in Kamakura — one of the area’s most iconic Shinto shrines.

Vermilion buildings, a torii-lined approach, and peaceful grounds that make the perfect reset between sessions.

(Photos from Tsurugaoka Hachimangū Shrine, Kamakura.)

Welcome our newest member to the Empathic Computing Lab: Chenyao Diao!

Chenyao started her PhD on 1 June, joining the research project “He karapitipitinga mariko — Immersive regenerative tourism experiences in Aotearoa” with Mark Billinghurst.

She completed an MSc. in Media Technology at Technische Universität Ilmenau, and a B.Eng. in Electrical Engineering at the Communication University of China.

We’re excited to have Chenyao on the team — welcome!

That’s a wrap on NII Shonan Meeting #244 in Japan 🇯🇵

This week’s theme was “AR and AI: Everyday AR through AI-in-the-Loop” — a fantastic few days of deep discussion, idea-sharing, and collaboration.

Thanks to the organisers and to the full delegation of attendees for making it such a great research retreat.

(Sharing the full group photo here!)

Some behind-the-scenes photos from NII Shonan Meeting #244 ("AR and AI: Everyday AR through AI-in-the-Loop").

This is what a research retreat looks like in practice: focused discussion, lots of sketching, and a room full of clever people working through ideas together.

We’ll share more highlights soon — but for now, here’s the “hardworking team” energy we love to see.

🇯🇵 Mark Billinghurst is in Japan this week for NII Shonan Meeting No.244 — “AR and AI: Everyday AR through AI-in-the-Loop”.

These Shonan meetings are intensive research retreats that bring together experts from around the world for several days of deep discussion. This one is focused on the future of everyday AR and what it looks like when AI is “in the loop” as a real-time collaborator.

We’ll share more highlights (and photos) soon.

Learn more:

No.244 AR and AI: Everyday AR through AI-in-the-Loop | SeminarsNII Shonan Meeting NII Shonan Meeting is a series of informatics seminars managed by NII, aiming to promote informatics research by providing premier venue in order for the leading scientists, young researchers, and practitioners to exchange, discuss and explore their research findings and cutting-edge topics.

ECL Director Professor Mark Billinghurst took the stage in Melbourne last week at the Melbourne XR Industry Meetup, hosted by Immerse Australia at RMIT's Virtual Experiences Laboratory. A great evening of talks, demos, and connecting with Australia's XR community! 🎤🌏

Can VR help you fall asleep faster?

Yun Suen Pai's NapWell research says: yes, significantly.

NapWell is a VR sleep assistant that uses realistic visual imagery to displace the thought spirals that keep people awake. The system embeds EOG (electrooculography) sensors into the VR headset to detect when the user is approaching sleep onset, creating a closed-loop feedback system.

In a user study (n=20) comparing no devices, a sleeping mask, a VR view of the study room, and a preferred VR environment:
→ VR significantly reduced sleep onset latency
→ EOG-based ML model predicted sleep onset with 70% cross-validated accuracy

Built from commercial hardware. Low cost. Replicable.

Sleep assistance as a wearable sensing problem. That's a lane worth pursuing.

Read the paper: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10055-021-00571-w

NapWell: An EOG-based Sleep Assistant Exploring the Effects of Virtual Reality on Sleep Onset - Virtual Reality We present NapWell, a Sleep Assistant using virtual reality (VR) to decrease sleep onset latency by providing a realistic imagery distraction prior to sleep onset. Our proposed prototype was built using commercial hardware and with relatively low cost, making it replicable for future works as well a...

Two drummers. Two brains. One XR experience measuring whether they're actually in sync.

NeuralDrum is Yun Suen Pai's SIGGRAPH Asia 2020 project with Kunal Gupta and Ryo Hajika: an extended reality drumming experience that measures Phase Locking Value (PLV) between two players' EEG signals in real time — and feeds that synchrony back into the visual and audio experience.

When your brains are in phase: the experience responds. When they drift: it stills.

Brain synchrony has been studied in neuroscience labs for decades. NeuralDrum makes it experiential. And interactive. That's new.

Read the paper:https://yunsuenpai.com/assets/pdf/neuraldrum.pdf