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Virtual Reality as a Tool to Facilitate Empathy: Embodied Simulations and Perspective Taking in the Body of Another
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Research paradigms for stimulating empathic responses in virtual reality change perceived self-other overlap through illusions that cause users to experience their own body as a virtual avatar with a different type of body. Virtual Alterity paradigms involve sharing aspects of another real person's first-person experience in interactive virtual environments. In this thesis, I define empathy as an other-directed emotion motivating concern for another's welfare, and argue that virtual alterity systems are better designed to facilitate empathy when conceived in this way, as compared to avatar illusions in VR.
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... Therefore, VR has been considered as an effective medium to deliver storytelling experiences (Shin, 2018). Also, lots of studies have found that VR is a powerful tool to enhance people's empathy and regarded it as an "empathy machine" (Farmer & Maister, 2017;Gerry, 2017;Herrera et al., 2018;Shin, 2018;Kandaurova & Lee, 2019). ...
... Our research studied the effect on empathy facilitation of VR users from visual perspective. In general, VR surely could be an "empathy machine" from both first and third-person point of view, which corroborated the previous studies and viewpoints (Farmer & Maister, 2017;Gerry, 2017;Herrera et al., 2018;Shin, 2018;Kandaurova & Lee, 2019). Meanwhile, there was statistically significant difference between the two visual perspectives in affective empathy facilitation. ...
Virtual Reality (VR), as a modern technology, can embody perspective-taking, making people see the world through the eyes of others. Many research has found that VR can be an effective medium to facilitate empathy; besides, some studies have investigated the underlying mechanism of empathy facilitation through VR devices. The current research examines whether the difference in visual perspective, which are represented as the first or third-person point of view, would affect the empathy facilitation of VR users.We invited forty people, separated into two groups as the first-person perspective group (1PP) and the third-person perspective group (3PP). The subjects were asked to watch the video through VR devices with same contents but from different points of view. The results indicated that there was no significant difference in empathy facilitation between the two groups. However, after dividing empathy into two dimensions, affective and cognitive empathy, the former showed a significant difference. Experiencing from the third-person perspective, the subjects aroused more emotions, such as guilty and compassion, thereby cultivating empathy toward the character of the video. Furthermore, for the feelings of the VR experience, the subjects of 1PP and 3PP displayed great disparity as well. Most of the subjects of 3PP subjectively considered the experience good, while the others felt neutral.
... Empathy refers to the ability of someone (empathizer) to understand and share the feelings of another individual (social target) [21], [22]. Perspective-taking on the other hand refers to one's cognitive capacity to perceive the world from another person's viewpoint [23], [24]. A person could mentally transport into the mind of another in order to experience the "other" as the "self" and thus increase prosocial behavior. ...
... Well-informed and impartial experiences of prosocial value that delineate what it is like being somebody else can be created and disseminated through the VR platform. With the use of VR, we can have the opportunity to experience the life of another person and understand another point of view [23]. Narratives allow us to understand the context of another person's affective and cognitive situation, and also how an experience is personally meaningful for them. ...
... Slater et al. argue that 1PP creates significantly higher levels of empathy through a transfer of self. Linda Joy Gerry, and the Machine to Be Another project (Gerry, 2017) presented a gender swap experience to facilitate such empathy. Jerry argues for 'Virtual Alterity' -a process that activates both automatic and volitional (active) empathic processes by maintaining a self-other distinction that is not present in Slater's work. ...
... Image 1: Photo of The Machine to Be Another's Gender Swap experience. (Gerry, 2017) OPENING THE DOOR IN QUESTION Image 2: Image from The Wearable (Kanary Nikolov(a), 2016) On the whole, clinical simulations appear to focus on a symptomology of psychotic experience, such as 'voice hearing' (Riches et al., 2018;Tabar, 2007;Wieland Diane et al., 2014), fractured vision (Kanary Nikolov(a), 2016) or delayed event-based reaction times (Spanlang et al., 2019). The latter was a VR experiment used by Spanlang et al. to argue that their simulation had the effect of 'fragmenting the consciousness of healthy participants'. ...
The Rosetta Wheel framework is a framework for design teams to guide the development of games for health behaviour change. The framework is grounded in evidence-based research of the psychology of behaviour change. It is further informed by game analysis and expert design techniques in order to understand how psychological processes map with game design patterns.
The Rosetta Wheel has 10 Change Keys, assisting design teams to create game mechanics which foster the psychological processes of change, alongside 19 Key Considerations which support the overall development process.
The presentation will cover the research process that led to the development of the framework, along with an overview of the Rosetta Wheel Framework, and will finish off by introducing some implementation ideas of how the framework can be applied in practice.
... Although the effectiveness of IVR to improve empathy is already well established (Farmer & Maister, 2017;Gerry, 2017;Herrera et al., 2018;Kleinsmith et al., 2015;Shin, 2018), deciphering the underlying mechanisms of changes has received only limited attention beyond a few empirical investigations (Ahn et al., 2013;Schutte & Stilinovi� c, 2017;Shin, 2018) and theoretical explorations (Bertrand, Guegan, Robieux, McCall, & Zenasni, 2018;Ibrahim & Ang, 2018). From this literature, several contributing factors have been outlined (e.g., Bertrand et al., 2018), but five appear particularly pivotal. ...
... First, it is important to note that the findings of this study further validate a solid line of research that has demonstrated the effectiveness of IVR modality to trigger empathy change (Farmer & Maister, 2017;Gerry, 2017;Herrera et al., 2018;Kleinsmith et al., 2015;Shin, 2018). However, contrary to the common approach in this line of work, the present study did not address immediate empathy change in response to a directly empathy-evoking media content. ...
Recent research has emphasized the promise of Immersive Virtual Reality (IVR) to bolster empathy. The underlying mechanisms of such an intriguing outcome are, however, underexplored. The present study examines the effect of distinct but interrelated user experiences (UX) dimensions underlying the bolstering effect of IVR on empathy. Sixty-five young adults participated in five 1-h weekly programs encompassing a total of 25 IVR experiences of different nature. Following each session, participants rated their UX of immersion-presence, illusion of body ownership, illusion of agency, engagement, and IVR-triggered mind-wandering for each IVR experience. Baseline empathy, operationalized in a multifaceted fashion, was measured both before and after the IVR program, spanning a total of seven weeks. Empathy significantly increased after the program with a moderate effect size (d = .52). Further, 27.6% of the variance in empathy change was explained by the combined effect of the UX variables. The largest predictors were illusion of body ownership and agency. The pattern of results was the same across types of IVR experience, suggesting that media content (whether empathy-evoking or not), did not moderate the relationship between UX and empathy. Together, this study highlights that IVR is more an effective “perspective taking-machine” than “empathy machine” per se.
... Frequentemente, os experimentos em RV combinam body ownership illusion e perspective taking (mudança de perspectiva) a fim de aumentar os níveis de empatia. 18 Segundo pesquisas realizadas pelo Experimental Virtual Environments Lab for Neuroscience and Technology da Universidade de Barcelona, liderado por Mel Slater, e pelo Virtual Human Interaction Lab da Universidade Stanford, dirigido por Jeremy Bailenson, a ilusão de portar um corpo pode resultar na modificação da percepção de si mesmo e dos outros, com impacto sobre nossas atitudes implícitas e em nosso comportamento social. 19 Os experimentos com RV têm permitido que os participantes assumam um corpo virtual de um membro pertencente a um grupo diferente do seu, além de modular o autoconceito e comportamento por meio dos traços, positivos e negativos, dos personagens representados por seus avatares, o que foi denominado de Efeito Proteus, por Yee. 5 Já foi demonstrado que indivíduos imersos em RV reconhecem emoções básicas de avatares, como raiva, alegria, medo e tristeza. ...
Homo digitalis refers to the man modified by technology. Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality allow us to see the world from the perspective of others, being called the "empathy machine". VR can be used in psychiatry and medical education to promote empathy. A narrative review was conducted on the Medline and Embase platforms, Google Scholar, article reference lists, and technology websites. Articles in English and French were selected, with no time limits for the search. A review of 66 references demonstrated that VR could generate positive cognitive, emotional, and behavioral changes, especially in relation to individuals from different groups. Immersive narratives with VR facilitate empathic understanding , putting the user in the perspective of another person. VR is also associated with applied games and functional brain activity studies, indicating potential to generate positive behavioral changes. Larger studies and clinical trials are needed to validate outcome effectiveness and ensure safe and ethical use of the technology. The review demonstrated promising results and an optimistic view of VR as a tool for generating empathy and promoting mental well-being.
Die Selbst- und Fremdwahrnehmung von Körperlichkeit und Körperbildern erfährt durch digitale Technologien einen weitreichenden Wandel, der auch in die Techniken ihrer Produktion hineinreicht. Die Beiträger*innen kartographieren diese Entwicklungen und fragen nach ihren Voraussetzungen, Folgen sowie Möglichkeiten der Kritik. Im zweiten Band des »Atlas der Datenkörper« beschreiben sie den digitalen Körper am historischen und rezenten Bauhaus, analysieren das Phänomen seiner Mystifizierung und dekonstruieren den Datenkörper als politischen Gegenstand. Aus sowohl der Perspektive künstlerischer und gestalterischer Forschung als auch der Kunst-, Kultur- und Medienwissenschaft entsteht so ein umfassender, transdisziplinärer Querschnitt zum Verhältnis Mensch-Technik im digitalen Zeitalter.
Die Selbst- und Fremdwahrnehmung von Körperlichkeit und Körperbildern erfährt durch digitale Technologien einen weitreichenden Wandel, der auch in die Techniken ihrer Produktion hineinreicht. Die Beiträger*innen kartographieren diese Entwicklungen und fragen nach ihren Voraussetzungen, Folgen sowie Möglichkeiten der Kritik. Im zweiten Band des »Atlas der Datenkörper« beschreiben sie den digitalen Körper am historischen und rezenten Bauhaus, analysieren das Phänomen seiner Mystifizierung und dekonstruieren den Datenkörper als politischen Gegenstand. Aus sowohl der Perspektive künstlerischer und gestalterischer Forschung als auch der Kunst-, Kultur- und Medienwissenschaft entsteht so ein umfassender, transdisziplinärer Querschnitt zum Verhältnis Mensch-Technik im digitalen Zeitalter.
The study presented in this paper investigated the impact of embodied and self-reflected virtual reality (VR) experiences on engineering design students' cognition and perception of nature-relatedness during the early conceptual design phase. Results showed that students who explored the design environment as a bird (embodied) or human (self) avatar were significantly more likely to explore a larger design space indicated by more semantically unique design concepts compared to students without the VR experience. Network graphs of the syntactic connection of design concepts revealed notable differences among the three groups. The bird avatar group showed more connections to nature-related and social concepts, while more technical concepts were central for the human avatar group, and concepts about money were more central to the control group. Finally, students who embodied the bird avatar had a significantly stronger perception of connection to nature compared to the human avatar and control group, with a small to medium effect size. The results suggest that embodied (as a bird) and self-reflected (as a human) VR experiences can enhance engineering students' design thinking and perception of connection to nature.
This handbook focuses on the development and nurturance of creativity across the lifespan, from early childhood to adolescence, adulthood, and later life. It answers the question: how can we help individuals turn their creative potential into achievement? Each chapter examines various contexts in which creativity exists, including school, workplace, community spaces, and family life. It covers various modalities for fostering creativity such as play, storytelling, explicit training procedures, shifting of attitudes about creative capacity, and many others. The authors review research findings across disciplines, encompassing the work of psychologists, educators, neuroscientists, and creators themselves, to describe the best practices for fostering creativity at each stage of development.
Like no other medium, virtual reality (VR) offers new possibilities to alter the perception of reality. These possibilities are mainly related to the feeling of presence in a virtual environment. With the VR performance ‘The Machine to be Another’ (TMTBA), we find an innovative embodiment system that enables a virtual body swap between two users. Hence, we conceptualise the performance as some kind of breaching experiment in order to alter self- and body perception. With the use of TMTBA and a qualitative research approach, we hope to gain a closer insight into the formation, alteration and persistence of body images. This challenges the phenomenological idea that our sense of bodily presence is essentially anchored in our physical or ‘objective’ body as we know it and seems to potentially expand our notion of what bodily presence can mean.
Perception has been for philosophers in the last few decades an area of compelling interest and intense investigation. In large part, the catalyst for this activity has come from contemporary cognitive science and neuroscience, which has been progressing at an accelerating pace, throwing up new information about the brain and new conceptions of how sensory information is processed and used. These new conceptions offer philosophers opportunities for reconceptualizing the senses—what they tell us, how we use them, and the nature of the knowledge they give us. Today, the philosophy of perception resonates with ideas that had not even been articulated in the 1970s and 1980s. This Handbook is a survey by leading philosophical thinkers of contemporary issues and new thinking in philosophy of perception. It includes sections on the history of the subject, introductions to contemporary issues in the epistemology, ontology, and aesthetics of perception, treatments of the individual sense modalities and of the things we perceive by means of them, and a consideration of how perceptual information is integrated and consolidated. New analytic tools and applications to other areas of philosophy are discussed in depth. Each of the forty-five entries is written by a leading expert, some collaborating with younger figures; each seeks to introduce the reader to a broad range of issues. All contain new ideas on the topic covered; together they are a portrait of the vigour and innovative zeal of a young field. The book is accessible to anybody who has an intellectual interest in issues concerning perception.
The Machine to Be Another' is an embodiment system designed to address the relation between identity and empathy. The project merges performances with protocols of neuroscience experiments, in order to offer users an immersive experience of seeing themselves in the body of another person. The paper reports the methods and partial results of the interdisciplinary qualitative investigation that we are making on low budget approach to stimulate empathy through embodied interaction between individuals.
People generally show greater preference for members of their own racial group compared to racial out-group members. This type of ‘in-group bias’ is evident in mimicry behaviors. We tend to automatically mimic the behaviors of in-group members, and this behavior is associated with interpersonal sensitivity and empathy. However, mimicry is reduced when interacting with out-group members. Although race is considered an unchangeable trait, it is possible using embodiment in immersive virtual reality to engender the illusion in people of having a body of a different race. Previous research has used this technique to show that after a short period of embodiment of White people in a Black virtual body their implicit racial bias against Black people diminishes. Here we show that this technique powerfully enhances mimicry. We carried out an experiment with 32 White (Caucasian) female participants. Half were embodied in a White virtual body and the remainder in a Black virtual body. Each interacted in two different sessions with a White and a Black virtual character, in counterbalanced order. The results show that dyads with the same virtual body skin color expressed greater mimicry than those of different color. Importantly, this effect occurred depending on the virtual body’s race, not participants’ actual racial group. When embodied in a Black virtual body, White participants treat Black as their novel in-group and Whites become their novel out-group. This reversed in-group bias effect was obtained regardless of participants’ level of implicit racial bias. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of this surprising psychological phenomenon.
Self-location—the sense of where I am in space—provides an experiential anchor for one's interaction with the environment. In the studies of full-body illusions, many researchers have defined self-location solely in terms of body-location—the subjective feeling of where my body is. Although this view is useful, there is an issue regarding whether it can fully accommodate the role of 1PP-location—the sense of where my first-person perspective is located in space. In this study, we investigate self-location by comparing body-location and 1PP-location: using a head-mounted display (HMD) and a stereo camera, the subjects watched their own body standing in front of them and received tactile stimulations. We manipulated their senses of body-location and 1PP-location in three different conditions: the participants standing still (Basic condition), asking them to move forward (Walking condition), and swiftly moving the stereo camera away from their body (Visual condition). In the Walking condition, the participants watched their body moving away from their 1PP. In the Visual condition, the scene seen via the HMD was systematically receding. Our data show that, under different manipulations of movement, the spatial unity between 1PP-location and body-location can be temporarily interrupted. Interestingly, we also observed a “double-body effect.” We further suggest that it is better to consider body-location and 1PP-location as interrelated but distinct factors that jointly support the sense of self-location.
While nothing can be more vivid, immediate and real than our own sensorial experiences, emerging virtual reality technologies are playing with the possibility of being able to share someone else's sensory reality. The Painter Project is a virtual environment where users see a video from a painter's point of view in tandem with a tracked rendering of their own hand while they paint on a physical canvas. The end result is an experiment in superimposition of one experiential reality on top of another, hopefully opening a new window into an artist's creative process. This explorative study tested this virtual environment on stimulating empathy and creativity. The findings indicate potential for this technology as a new expert-novice mentorship simulation.
Immersive virtual reality can be used to visually substitute a person’s real body by a life-sized virtual body (VB) that is seen from first person perspective. Using real-time motion capture the VB can be programmed to move synchronously with the real body (visuomotor synchrony), and also virtual objects seen to strike the VB can be felt through corresponding vibrotactile stimulation on the actual body (visuotactile synchrony). This setup typically gives rise to a strong perceptual illusion of ownership over the VB. When the viewpoint is lifted up and out of the VB so that it is seen below this may result in an out-of-body experience (OBE). In a two-factor between-groups experiment with 16 female participants per group we tested how fear of death might be influenced by two different methods for producing an OBE. In an initial embodiment phase where both groups experienced the same multisensory stimuli there was a strong feeling of body ownership. Then the viewpoint was lifted up and behind the VB. In the experimental group once the viewpoint was out of the VB there was no further connection with it (no visuomotor or visuotactile synchrony). In a control condition, although the viewpoint was in the identical place as in the experimental group, visuomotor and visuotactile synchrony continued. While both groups reported high scores on a question about their OBE illusion, the experimental group had a greater feeling of disownership towards the VB below compared to the control group, in line with previous findings. Fear of death in the experimental group was found to be lower than in the control group. This is in line with previous reports that naturally occurring OBEs are often associated with enhanced belief in life after death.
The experiment described in this paper is performed within a system that provides a human with the possibility and capability to be physically immersed in the body of an android robot, Geminoid HI-2. The participant, through the swapped body of Geminoid HI-2, is able to see his/her own body in front of themselves like a reflection in a mirror -- then they can touch their own body by the hands of the Geminoid HI-2. We are investigating how the sense of body-ownership is generated during visual and tactile tests and how the presence of agency impacts one's body-ownership.
Despite the enthusiasm around social-emotional learning, the vast number of skills, dispositions, and attitudes we hope to infuse into students will overwhelm even the most ambitious schools. However, a single core capacity underlies a great many social-emotional learning outcomes: social perspective taking. Recent research on this process of “reading” others — figuring out their thoughts, feelings, and motivations — suggests that we now know enough to teach this capacity to students. By helping youth engage in this process regularly as “detectives” rather than “judges” and providing them with feedback, a constellation of social-emotional learnings will blossom.