A Pioneering Home for Immersive Virtual Reality

The Research Center for Virtual Environments and Behavior (ReCVEB) grew out of a simple but powerful idea: virtual environments could become a serious tool for studying human perception, cognition, social interaction, and behavior.

Long before consumer virtual reality became commonplace, UCSB researchers in the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences were building systems that allowed people to move through computer-generated spaces while researchers studied perception, navigation, social interaction, and spatial cognition. Led by Professor Jack Loomis, Professor Jim Blascovich, and Dr. Andrew Beall, ReCVEB emerged from that early work and became one of the country’s distinctive research facilities for immersive, ambulatory virtual reality.

Early Roots: Virtual Sound, Assistive Navigation, and Spatial Cognition

Professor Jack Loomis introduced virtual reality (VR) to the UCSB campus in 1986 through virtual sound, and in 1991 through visual VR. Loomis’s research interests included vision, hearing, touch, and spatial cognition. His entry into VR came through three main interests: computers and 3D displays, assistive technology for blind people, and a long-standing interest in perceptual phenomenology.

In 1985, Loomis became acquainted with Professor Reginald Golledge, a distinguished UCSB Geography professor who had lost his sight the previous year. Together with Professor Roberta Klatzky, then in Psychology and now at Carnegie Mellon University, they began developing a research program on spatial cognition in blind people and on a navigation system using a virtual sound interface that could support independent travel.

In 1986, Loomis and Chick Hebert, the developmental engineer in the Psychology Department, built a virtual sound display using analog hardware. They also created a position-tracking system using two video cameras that triangulated the user’s 2D position, without elevation. Orientation tracking was accomplished using an electronic compass mounted on a head strap.

The virtual sound display and tracking system were used to guide walking observers to locations in a large indoor space. In 1987, Loomis, as PI, with co-PIs Klatzky and Golledge, received the first of a series of grants from the National Eye Institute supporting research on spatial cognition in blind people and the development of a navigation system using GPS. Their collaboration continued for 20 years. For more information, visit https://pgs.geog.ucsb.edu.

From the First Visual VR System to Higher-Quality Immersive Environments

UCSB’s first visual VR system (1991–93). Left: a home-built headset made from Sony Watchman displays, lenses, and a ski mask. Center: donning the headset and head-orientation tracker. Right: the complete ambulatory VR system demonstrated in 1993.
UCSB’s first visual VR system (1991–93). Left: a home-built headset made from Sony Watchman displays, lenses, and a ski mask. Center: donning the headset and head-orientation tracker. Right: the complete ambulatory VR system demonstrated in 1993.

In 1989, Andrew Beall, a cognitive science graduate of Brown University, joined Loomis as a graduate student. Beall came with many years of experience with computer software and hardware.

In 1991, Loomis and Beall obtained seed funding from UCSB to develop a visual VR system that allowed users to walk around in a large space. With modest funding, Beall designed and created a head-mounted display (HMD) using video displays from Sony Watchman portable TVs, condensing lenses, and a ski mask. Beall also developed the VR software that served as the foundation for subsequent implementations. Using the same tracking system described above, Loomis and Beall demonstrated their VR system at a technology fair at the Sheraton Hotel in Santa Barbara in 1993.

The virtual pit (Loomis lab, late 1990s). Participants could physically walk through a computer-generated environment and cross a narrow bridge suspended over a virtual drop. Despite the simple graphics, the experience could provoke genuine hesitation and fear, illustrating how immersive VR could elicit realistic behavior under controlled laboratory conditions.
The virtual pit (Loomis lab, late 1990s). Participants could physically walk through a computer-generated environment and cross a narrow bridge suspended over a virtual drop. Despite the simple graphics, the experience could provoke genuine hesitation and fear, illustrating how immersive VR could elicit realistic behavior under controlled laboratory conditions.

In 1995, Loomis and Beall received significant funding from the Office of Naval Research for research on visual perception and spatial cognition. This provided for a higher-quality VR system using a more powerful graphics computer, a Virtual Research FS5 head-mounted display, a novel 3D video tracking system that Beall developed based on video digitizing boards, and a goniometer for tracking head orientation in 3D.

The quality of the resulting virtual environments, using texture mapping, was far superior to that of the virtual environments obtained with the prior system.

The Founding of ReCVEB

In 1995, Jim Blascovich joined the UCSB faculty, having moved from SUNY Buffalo. Blascovich was a distinguished social psychologist with broad interests in social motivation, social influence, and a biopsychosocial model of challenge and threat.

When Blascovich saw what Loomis and Beall had created, he immediately took an interest in using the technology as a research tool in social psychology. Thus began the long three-way collaboration among Blascovich, Beall, and Loomis.

Early on, Blascovich conceived the idea of ReCVEB as a campus-wide facility using VR to study a wide variety of topics. UCSB provided initial funding for the center, but the major support came from a large NSF grant in 1998, led by Loomis as PI with Blascovich as co-PI. That grant provided the resources that substantially launched ReCVEB and supported the development of multiple high-quality VR systems in Psychology and Geography.

As part of the grant, they received funding for two postdoctoral researchers, one in spatial cognition and one in social psychology. David Waller assumed the former position, which led to productive collaborations between faculty and students in Psychology and Geography. Jeremy Bailenson assumed the latter position and spearheaded an impressive slate of projects involving faculty and students in social psychology.

After finishing his postdoc a few years later, Bailenson was hired by the Communication Department at Stanford University, where he became one of the leading figures using virtual and augmented reality to investigate a range of topics, including social interaction and the perception of self and others.

ReCVEB in Psychology East

Left: assisted walking in the Loop task, used to study how people update their position and orientation in space as they walk. Center: immersive target interception, where participants move through a virtual park to intercept a moving target. Right: the Virtualizer treadmill, enabling controlled locomotion experiments in large virtual environments.
Left: assisted walking in the Loop task, used to study how people update their position and orientation in space as they walk. Center: immersive target interception, where participants move through a virtual park to intercept a moving target. Right: the Virtualizer treadmill, enabling controlled locomotion experiments in large virtual environments.

Around 2003, ReCVEB moved into the spacious basement of the new Psychology Building, largely through Jim Blascovich’s efforts. Two large bays, each suitable for room-scale movement, were equipped with state-of-the-art virtual reality systems. Blascovich and Beall became co-directors of the center.

Following a period of reduced activity, ReCVEB was revitalized in the mid-2010s after Liz Chrastil joined UC Santa Barbara. Chrastil and Blascovich worked to bring the facility back into active use and update its research program.

Mary Hegarty became director in 2018, with Chrastil serving as associate director. Michael Beyeler assumed the associate director role in 2019 after Chrastil moved to UC Irvine. During this period, ReCVEB supported research across spatial cognition, navigation, neuroscience, immersive technology, and human behavior.

In July 2026, Beyeler became director following Hegarty’s retirement. Hegarty remains affiliated with the center as Distinguished Professor Emerita.