In the Perception and Action in Virtual Environments research group, our aim is to investigate human behavior, perception and cognition using ecologically valid and immersive virtual environments. Virtual reality (VR) equipment enables our scientists to provide sensory stimulus in a controlled virtual world and to manipulate or alter sensory input that would not be possible in the real world. More specifically, VR technology enables us to specifically manipulate the visual body, the contents of the virtual world, and the sensory stimulus (visual, vestibular, kinesthetic, tactile, and auditory) while performing or viewing an action. Our group focuses on several different areas, all areas involve measuring human performance in complex everyday tasks, i.e. spatial judgments, walking, driving, communicating and spatial navigation. We investigate the impact of having an animated self-avatar on spatial perception, the feeling of embodiment or agency, and on the ability for two people to effectively communicate. We are also interested in the impact of other avatars on human performance, human emotion perception and learning/training. Additionally, we are very interested in the visual and bodily control of locomotion and reaching tasks. Finally, we are interested in spatial navigation and memory of learned spatial layouts of small and large spaces. Our goal is to use state-of-the-art virtual reality technology to better understand how humans perceive sensory information and form an understanding of, remember their experiences in and act in the surrounding world. We use HMDs, large screen displays, motion simulators and sophisticated treadmills in combination with real-time rendering and control software and tools in order to immerse our participants in a virtual world. We use many different experimental design methods, i.e. psychophysical methods, adaptation and dual task paradigms, well established and novel performance measures of behavioral tasks and fMRI.