The document discusses the use of virtual reality (VR) as a tool for enhancing empathy and understanding in social work and education. It explores various applications of VR, such as perspective-taking experiences, empathy training, and social cognition skills, highlighting its potential to foster deeper connections between individuals. Additionally, it examines future technologies like empathic computing and the impact of embodied simulations on biases and psychological conditions.

1. Virtual Reality and
Social Work
Lynda Joy Gerry
24th of August 2016

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3. 3

4. THE MACHINE TO BE ANOTHER:
An Empathy Machine?
4
“Empathy is created the moment we try to put ourselves in
another person’s shoes.” – Aspen Baker, TED Radio Hour
“The machine to be another is designed to stimulate
empathy through embodied interaction between
individuals.” (Bertrand et al., 2014)
To what extent can we experience and understand what it is like
to be someone else?

5. Machine to Be Another: Live Stream
Perspective Swapping
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6. The Machine to Be Another
(MIT Media Lab)
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7. The Effect: After Wearing the Headset
 “Now when we look into another person's eyes,
what we see is another person looking back at us.
Now we see another being who is just like us,
another entity trapped inside the illusion of all
these packages of individual differences -- body,
personality, etc.
– Carl Rogers
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8. The Potential: What Happens When
People Take Off the VR Headset
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9. What is Virtual Reality?
 VR is the ability to transport and immerse yourself into another reality than
the one you’re physically in
 You can do this to experience something new, invoke a feeling in people or
simply just because its fun
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10. The First HMD

11. The VR Hype in 80’s & 90’s 11

12. Overview 12
Mobile
Google
Cardboard
Samsung
Gear VR
Plastic
HMDs
Sitting
Playstation
VR
Oculus
Rift
Standing/Walking
HTC Vive

13. Sense of Presence 13

14. Applications 14
• Art
• Science
• Architecture
• Construction
Visualization
• Music
• Sports
• Social Time
• Travel
Physical Experience
• Games
• Movies
• Music
Digital Entertainment
• Schools/Uni
• Staff Training
• Driving Schools
Education/ Simulation
• Virtual-Commerce
• Enhance the
physical shopping
experience
E-commerce

15. Healthcare 15

16. Architecture 16

17. E-Commerce

18. Immersive Gallery Art Experiences 18

19. AR
(5-7 years)
3D Scanning
(1-2 years)
Haptic Feedback
(3-5 years)
Future Technology

20. Empathic Computing (Billinghurst,
2016)
1. Recognition – systems that can
recognize your feelings and emotions
(sensors)
2. Understanding – systems that help you
better understand the experience of others
(VR)
3. Sharing – systems that help you better
share the experience of others (AR)
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21. 1. Recognition
 Roz Picard – MIT Media Lab
 Systems that recognize emotion
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22. Example: Affectiva 22

23. 2. Understanding: Virtual Reality
“Virtual reality offers a whole new
medium to tell stories that really
connect people and create an empathic
connection.”
- Nonny de la Peña
http://www.emblematicgroup.com
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24. Project Syria (de la Peña, 2015) 24

25. Clouds Over Sidra (Chris Milk) 25

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27. New Eyes for Students (Makropol)
 Project designed to teach the UN Development Initiatives
to Danish grade school children, especially cultural
diversity, global sustainability issues, and perspective
taking
 Transports student to Africa, where a little girl guides
audience on a tour through her world and talks about her
life
 Unique design that allows for a “you” relation where
audience feels present and like the little girl is talking to
them.
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28. 3. Sharing: Augmented Reality
Can we develop experiences that
allow us to share what we are
seeing, hearing, and feeling with
someone else?
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29. The Amphibian SCUBA Diving
Simulator (Dhruv Jain, MIT Media Lab)
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Goal: Help people
understand the liberating
effects of disabilities, which
Jain (who is deaf) likens to
the experience of being
underwater.

30. Childhood (Siggraph 2015)
 Kenji Suzuki, Univesity of Tsukuba
 What does it feel like to be a child?
 VR display + moved cameras + hand restrictors
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31. 31Virtual Embodiment
Banakou, Groten, Slater, 2013

32. Examples of Avatar Effects
 Embodying a body of a different race reduces implicit racial biases
(Groom, Bailenson, and Nass, 2009)
 Embodying a tall avatar increases self-confidence in negotiation tasks
(Yee and Bailenson, 2007)
 Embodying an attractive avatar increases self-disclosure
(Yee and Bailenson, 2007)
 Embodying a stressful posture in a virtual body can increase stress
even though physical body is not in that posture/position
(Bergström, Kilteni, and Slater, 2013)
 Embodying a child avatar body causes subjects causes an
overestimation in object sizes
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33. Notes on Blindness 33

34. 34

35. Be My Eyes 35

36. 36

37. Promoting Helping Behavior in VR 37
Ahn et al., 2015

38. Autumn (Tusmørke) 38

39. Autism: Too Much Information 39

40. Discussion Question
 What is the value of having these types of
experiences that allow us to see/hear/experience
the world as another?
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41. The Virtual Reality Social Cognition
Training Program
 VR can be used as a learning tool for children to:
- Teach safety skills (Self et al., 2007; Josman et al., 2008)
- Hold their interest (Cobb et al., 2002; Max & Burke, 1997)
- Monitor eye gaze (Lahiri et al., 2011)
- Aid learning of pretend play (Herrera et al., 2008)
- Interpret emotions of avatars accurately (Moore et al., 2005;
Cheng and Ye 2010)
Ex: Use virtual simulations of a bus/café to teach social skills.
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42. Autism Speaks (Daniel Yang) 42

43. Anxiety in Children: The Virtual
Classroom

44. The Virtual Kitchen
Gorini, A., Gaggioli, A., Vigna, C., & Riva, G. (2008). A Second Life for eHealth: Prospects for the Use of
3-D Virtual Worlds in Clinical Psychology. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 10(3).
doi:10.2196/jmir.1029

45. Treating Body Dysmorphia: Four
Doors of Different Dimensions
 Patients have to choose the door
that they believe corresponds
exactly to their width. This is
aimed to improve awareness of
body image distortion. Socratic
questioning is used during
exposure in order to help patients
draw appropriate conclusions from
the experience (Riva et al., 1998).

46. Perpiña and Botella (2013)
 Researchers designed tasks in virtual environments to change the
way participants thought about their body size and appearance
 While wearing a virtual reality headset, participants see a virtual
representation of an avatar with their own body proportions.
 In one setting, participants have to manipulate a 3D human figure
until it represents their own body, which is shown nearby as a
translucent 2D image.
Marco, J. H., Perpiñá, C., & Botella, C. (2013). Effectiveness of cognitive behavioral therapy supported by virtual reality in the treatment of
body image in eating disorders: One year follow-up. Psychiatry Research, 209(3), 619-625. doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2013.02.023

47. •Virtual Food Causes the Same
Emotional Response as Real Food
Gorini, Griez, Petrova, and Riva (2010)
 Researchers compared the effects of the exposure to real food, virtual food and
photographs of food
 Sample: 10 anorexic, 10 bulimic and 10 control participants (all women)
 Conditions: 6 real high-calorie foods placed on a table in front of them, Slideshow
of the same foods, and VR computer-generated diner where they could interact
with the virtual version of the same 6 items
 Measures: heart rate, skin conductance, psychological stress
 Results: Virtual stimuli are as effective as real ones, and more effective than static
pictures, in generating emotional responses in eating disorder patients
Gorini, A., Griez, E., Petrova, A., & Riva, G. (2010). Assessment of the emotional responses produced by exposure to
real food, virtual food and photographs of food in patients affected by eating disorders. Ann Gen Psychiatry Annals of
General Psychiatry, 9(1), 30. doi:10.1186/1744-859x-9-30

48. Gorini, Griez, Petrova,
and Riva (2010)
Gorini, A., Griez, E., Petrova, A., & Riva, G. (2010). Assessment of the emotional responses produced by exposure to real food, virtual food and
photographs of food in patients affected by eating disorders. Ann Gen Psychiatry Annals of General Psychiatry, 9(1), 30. doi:10.1186/1744-859x-9-30

49. Gorini, Griez, Petrova,
and Riva (2010)
Gorini, A., Griez, E., Petrova, A., & Riva, G. (2010). Assessment of the emotional responses produced by exposure to real food, virtual food and photographs
of food in patients affected by eating disorders. Ann Gen Psychiatry Annals of General Psychiatry, 9(1), 30. doi:10.1186/1744-859x-9-30

50. What if you could show someone
the body that they think they
have?
 Imagine showing someone with body
dysmorphia the body that they think they have,
and use embodied simulations in virtual reality
to allow them to experience being in that body
to reveal the difference between their altered
body image and reality.

51. VR TO REDUCE
COGNITIVE BIASES
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52. Somatosensory Resonance
 Definition: We understand other’s physical and
mental states by remapping other’s body states onto
our own sensorimotor system
 Through the visual remapping of touch,
synchronous touch stimuli applied to one’s own face
and the face of an outgroup member results in a
decrease in implicit biases.
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53. Visual Remapping of Touch 53
Fini et al., 2013

54. Reducing Implicit Racial Bias:
The Enfacement Illusion
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Ahn et al., 2015

55. FPP Hand Movement in VEs
(Adamovich et al., 2009)
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56. Painter Project: Stereo Footage with
Binaural Audio
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57. Ex Nihilo: Exploring the Stimulation of Creativity and
Empathy through Embodied Experiences in Virtual
Reality
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58. Gallagher et al. (2015)
Neurophenomenology of Awe and
Wonder
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59. Video of Experimental Task 59

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64. Introducing Ex Nihilo
In The Republic, Plato asks, "Will we
say, of a painter, that he makes
something?" and answers, "Certainly
not, he merely imitates."
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65. “Imitated” Paintings by Subjects 65

66. Subject Quote
“It almost feels like collectively
discovering something that was in her
head all along. The experience allowed
this completely different way of
connecting to someone that doesn’t rely
on facial expressions or anything.”
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67. The Next Challenge
“We’re starting to move out of the ‘wow’
phase of this new technology and into
‘what does this mean for humanity?’” –
Chris Milk
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68. Discussion Question
How can virtual reality help us
understand one another?
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69. Thanks for your Attention!
lynda@whatisexperience.com