Interactive Anticipation Lab

Our project aims to broaden the scope of current approaches towards anticipation by examining anticipatory processes in dynamic, interactive real-time encounters. The project integrates interdisciplinary impulses, for instance, from the social cognitive neurosciences with the aim to truly embrace and uncover the social dynamics in real-time interactions. As previous approaches turned a blind eye on the social dynamics of anticipation, this Momentum project is aimed at establishing a new paradigm by setting up a VR laboratory. This VR set-up allows to simulate, experimentally manipulate and hence examine dynamic movement interactions between participants and virtual avatars. To realize the aims of the project, we have assembled an international interdisciplinary scientific team with backgrounds in social cognitive neuroscience and human movement science/biomechanics as well as computer science. The project is funded by VolkswagenStiftung (Momentum funding; approved in April 2023) from June 2024 to May 2028, PI: Prof. Dr Rouwen Cañal Bruland, Friedrich Schiller University Jena.