Thalamus: A User Simulation Toolkit for Prototyping Multimodal Sensing Studies

TL;DR

Thalamus is a versatile software toolkit designed to simulate and synchronize multimodal physiological signals, streamlining the preparation and testing phases of user studies in HCI research.

Contribution

It introduces a cross-platform, flexible toolkit that enables experimenters to simulate, modify, and synchronize multimodal signals before conducting actual user studies.

Findings

Reduces time and cost in setting up user studies.

Allows testing of multimodal signal synchronization.

Supports cross-platform and cross-device operation.

Abstract

Conducting user studies that involve physiological and behavioral measurements is very time-consuming and expensive, as it not only involves a careful experiment design, device calibration, etc. but also a careful software testing. We propose Thalamus, a software toolkit for collecting and simulating multimodal signals that can help the experimenters to prepare in advance for unexpected situations before reaching out to the actual study participants and even before having to install or purchase a specific device. Among other features, Thalamus allows the experimenter to modify, synchronize, and broadcast physiological signals (as coming from various data streams) from different devices simultaneously and not necessarily located in the same place. Thalamus is cross-platform, cross-device, and simple to use, making it thus a valuable asset for HCI research.