Joseph Kearney is a Professor of Computer Science and a Collegiate Fellow of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Iowa. He co-directs the Hank Virtual Environments Lab with Jodie Plumert. His current research focuses on behavior, scene, and scenario modeling for virtual environments. With funding from the National Science Foundation and the National Center for Injury Prevention, he is investigating how virtual environments can be used as laboratories for the study of human behavior. He has also published research in psychophysics, computer vision, modeling of human movement, and computer animation.

Interests

• Simulation
• Virtual Environments
• Animation
• Human Computer Interaction

Projects

• Hank: Real-Time Ground Vehicle Simulation
• Virtual Environments as Laboratories for Studying Human Behavior
• Behavior Modeling and Scenario Authoring for Virtual Environments
• Environment Modeling

Recent Courses

• CS:2210 - Discrete Structures
• CS:3980 - Topics in Computer Science I: Building Interactive Virtual Environments in Unity
• CS:4500 - Rsrch Methods in Human-Computer Interact
• CS:4980 - Topics in Computer Science II: Virtual Reality

Art Gallery

• Wire-frame sculptures created by students in CS III

Recent Publications

2022

Subramanian, L. D., O’Neal, E. E., Mallaro, S., Williams, B., Sherony, R., Plumert, J. M., & Kearney, J. K. (2022). A comparison of daytime and nighttime pedestrian road-crossing using an immersive virtual environment. Traffic Injury Prevention, 23 (2), 97-101. https://doi.org/10.1080/15389588.2021.2023738

O’Neal, E. E., Rahimian, P., Jiang, Y., Zhou, S. Nikolas, M., Kearney, J. K., & Plumert, J. M. (2022). How do child ADHD symptoms and oppositionality impact parent-child interactions when crossing virtual roads? Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 47(3), 337-349. https://doi.org/10.1093/jpepsy/jsab102  

2021

Rahimian, P., Plumert, J. M., & Kearney, J. K. (2021). The effect of visuomotor latency on steering behavior in virtual reality. Frontiers in Virtual Reality, Volume 2, Article 727858.  https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.202727858

Subramanian, L. D., O’Neal, E. E., Roman, A., Sherony, R., Plumert, J. M., & Kearney, J. K. (2021). How do pedestrians respond to adaptive headlamp systems in vehicles? A road-crossing study in a virtual environment. Accident Analysis and Prevention, 160, 106298. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.202106298

Parr, M. D. N., Tang, H., Mallaro, S. R., Kearney, J. K., & Plumert, J. M. (2021). Do inattention/hyperactivity and motor timing predict children's virtual road-crossing performance? Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 46(9), 1130-1139. https://doi.org/10.1093/jpepsy/jsab054 

Malik, J., Parr, M. D. N., Flathau, J., Tang, H., Kearney, J. K., Plumert, J. M., & Rector, K. (2021). Determing the effect of smartphone alerts and warniongs on the street-crossing behavior of non-mobility-impaired older and younger adults. In CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '21), May 08-13, 2021, Yokohama, Japan, ACM, New York, USA, 12 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445234    

O'Neal, E.E., Zhou, S., Jiang, Y., Kearney, J. K., & Plumert, J. M. (2021). Let’s cross the next one: Parent-child road crossing in a virtual environment. Child Development, 92(2), e173-e185. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13457

2020

Jiang, Y., O'Neal, E.E., Zhou, S., Plumert, J. M., & Kearney, J. K. (2020). Crossing roads with a computer-generated agent: Persistent effects on perception-action tuning. ACM Transactions in Applied Perception (TAP), 18(1), 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1145/3431923

Brown, T., Schwarz, C., Sherony, R., Plumert, J., Kearney, J., & O'Neal, E. (2020). Evaluating the safety benefits of adaptive headlamps for reducing vehicle crashes with pedestrians at night. Traffic Injury Prevention, 1-2. https://doi.org/10.1080/15389588.2020.1829928

2019

Jiang, Y., O'Neal, E.E., Rahimian, P., Yon, J.P., Plumert, J. M., & Kearney, J. K. (2019). Joint action in a virtual environment: Crossing roads with risky vs. safe human and agent partners. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Graphics, 25, 2886-2895. 10.1109/TVCG.2018.2865945

O’Neal, E. E., Jiang, Y., Brown, K., Kearney, J. K., & Plumert, J. M. (2019). How does crossing roads with friends impact risk taking in young adolescents and adults? Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 44(6), 726-735. https://doi.org/10.1093/jpepsy/jsz020

2018

Plumert, J. M., & Kearney, J. K. (2018). Timing is almost everything: How children perceive and act on dynamic affordances. In J. M. Plumert (Vol. Ed.), Studying the perception-action system as a model system for understanding development. Edited volume in J. Benson (Series Ed.), Advances in Child Development and Behavior: 55. Cambridge, UK: Elsevier.

Rahimian, P., O’Neal, E., Zhou, S., Plumert, J. M., and Kearney, J. K. (2018). Harnessing vehicle-to-pedestrian (V2P) communication technology: Sending traffic warnings to texting pedestrians. Human Factors. Advance online publication: https://doi.org/10.1177/0018720818781365

Jiang, Y., O’Neal, E.E., Yon, J.P., Franzen, L., Rahimian, P., Plumert, J.P., and Kearney, J.K. (2018).  Acting together: Joint pedestrian road crossing in an immersive virtual environment. ACM Transactions on Applied Perception,15 (2), Article 8, 13 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3147884

O’Neal, E. E., Jiang, Y., Franzen, L. J., Rahimian, P., Yon, J. P., Kearney, J. K., & Plumert, J. M. (2018). Changes in perception–action tuning over long time scales: How children and adults perceive and act on dynamic affordances when crossing roads. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 44(1), 18-26. http://doi.org/10.1037/xhp0000378.

2017

Rahimian, P., & Kearney, J. (2017). Optimal camera placement for motion capture systems. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 23, 1209-1221.  

2016

Jiang, Y., O'Neal, E., Rahimian, P., Yon, J. P., Plumert, J. M., & Kearney, J. K. (2016). Action coordination with agents: crossing roads with a computer-generated character in a virtual environment. Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on Applied Perception, 57-64.

Jiang, Y., Rahimian, P., O'Neal, E. E., Plumert, J. M., Yon, J. P., Kearney, J. K., & Franzen, L. (2016). Acting together: Joint pedestrian road crossing in an immersive virtual environment. Virtual Reality (VR), 2016 IEEE, 193-194.

Rahimian, P., O’Neal, E.E., Yon, J.P., Franzen, L., Jiang, Y., Plumert, J.M., Kearney, J.K. (2016). Using a virtual environment to study the impact of sending traffic alerts to texting pedestrians. Proceedings of the 2016 IEEE-VR Conference, Greenville, SC.

2015

Nikolas, M.A., Elmore, A.L., Franzen, L., O’Neal, E.E., Kearney, J.K., & Plumert, J.M. (2015). Risky bicycling behavior among youth with and without attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 57, 141-148.

2014

Grechkin, T., Plumert, J. M., & Kearney, J. K. (2014). Dynamic affordances in embodied interactive systems: The role of display and mode of locomotion. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 20, 596-605. doi: 10.1109/TVCG.2014.18.

Chihak, B. J., Grechkin, T. Y., Kearney, J. K., Cremer, J. F., & Plumert, J. M. (2014). How children and adults learn to intercept moving gaps. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 122, 143-152.

Plumert, J. P., & Kearney, J. K. (2014a). Linking decisions and actions in dynamic environments: How child and adult cyclists cross roads with traffic. Ecological Psychology, 26(1-2), 125-133 [special issue in honor of Herbert L. Pick, Jr.]. 

Plumert, J. M., & Kearney, J. K. (2014b). How do children perceive and act on dynamic affordances in crossing traffic-filled roads? Child Development Perspectives, 8, 207-212. doi: 10.1111/cdep.12089

2013

Ziemer, C. J., Branson, M. J., Chihak, B. J., Kearney, J. K., Cremer, J.F., & Plumert, J. M. (2013). Manipulating perception versus action in recalibration tasks. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 75, 1260-1274.

Stevens, E., Plumert, J. M., Cremer, J. F., & Kearney, J. K. (2013). Preadolescent temperament and risky behavior: Bicycling across traffic-filled intersections in a virtual environment. Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 38(3), 285-295.

Grechkin, T. Y., Chihak, B. J., Cremer, J. F., Kearney, J. K., & Plumert, J. M. (2013). Perceiving and acting on complex affordances: How children and adults bicycle across two lanes of opposing traffic. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance, 39, 23-36.