1,720,967 research outputs found
Visuo-tactile congruency influences the body schema during full body ownership illusion
Full text linkPrevious research showed that full body ownership illusions in virtual reality (VR) can be robustly induced by providing congruent visual stimulation, and that congruent tactile experiences provide a dispensable extension to an already established phenomenon. Here we show that visuo-tactile congruency indeed does not add to already high measures for body ownership on explicit measures, but does modulate movement behavior when walking in the laboratory. Specifically, participants who took ownership over a more corpulent virtual body with intact visuo-tactile congruency increased safety distances towards the laboratory's walls compared to participants who experienced the same illusion with deteriorated visuo-tactile congruency. This effect is in line with the body schema more readily adapting to a more corpulent body after receiving congruent tactile information. We conclude that the action-oriented, unconscious body schema relies more heavily on tactile information compared to more explicit aspects of body ownership
The human source memory system struggles to distinguish virtual reality and reality
Full text linkVirtual Reality (VR) is used in a variety of fields with the goal to increase ecological validity compared to traditional monitor-based setups. Here we report additional evidence for the adequacy of this research strategy. In a memory confusion paradigm spanning over stimuli presentation in reality, VR and on a computer monitor, participants were more prone to confusing reality with VR than with a traditional monitor-based setup, indicating a relative proximity of experiences in VR and reality. We speculate that the human source memory's difficulty in distinguishing VR from reality may provide a basis for the good generalizability of treatment effects in VR to daily life. At the same time, the effect may demonstrate a potential danger of a mindless use of VR technology
Attention to faces in images is associated with personality and psychopathology.
Full text linkHumans show a robust tendency to look at faces in images, but also differ consistently in the strength of this attentional preference. Previous research remained inconclusive as to how a stronger face preference may be indicative of an individual's personality or clinical characteristics. Here we investigated face preferences in 120 participants (primarily drawn from a student population) who freely viewed photos in an internet browser showing a person in the context of a visually rich environment while attention was assessed using a cursor-based technique. Participants differed consistently in the strength of their face preference across images. A stronger preference for faces was correlated positively with openness to experience, extraversion, agreeableness and empathizing and was correlated negatively with social anxiety, depression levels and alexithymia. Trait measures were linked through a strong common factor which was additionally correlated with face preference. We conclude that face preferences may be linked to personality traits and to psychopathology but that an attribution to a specific facet of psychopathology may not be warranted. Future research should investigate links between face preferences and personality features in more diverse samples and across differing social situations
Social content and emotional valence modulate gaze fixations in dynamic scenes
Full text linkAbstractPrevious research has shown that low-level visual features (i.e., low-level visual saliency) as well as socially relevant information predict gaze allocation in free viewing conditions. However, these studies mainly used static and highly controlled stimulus material, thus revealing little about the robustness of attentional processes across diverging situations. Secondly, the influence of affective stimulus characteristics on visual exploration patterns remains poorly understood. Participants in the present study freely viewed a set of naturalistic, contextually rich video clips from a variety of settings that were capable of eliciting different moods. Using recordings of eye movements, we quantified to what degree social information, emotional valence and low-level visual features influenced gaze allocation using generalized linear mixed models. We found substantial and similarly large regression weights for low-level saliency and social information, affirming the importance of both predictor classes under ecologically more valid dynamic stimulation conditions. Differences in predictor strength between individuals were large and highly stable across videos. Additionally, low-level saliency was less important for fixation selection in videos containing persons than in videos not containing persons, and less important for videos perceived as negative. We discuss the generalizability of these findings and the feasibility of applying this research paradigm to patient groups.</jats:p
Social stress in an interaction with artificial agents in virtual reality: Effects of ostracism and underlying psychopathology
Full text linkSocial stress can emerge from situational as well as dispositional factors. Here we tested in direct juxtaposition how ostracism in a Cyberball game and underlying psychopathology levels both influence subjective and objective stress markers in an interaction with artificial agents in virtual reality (VR) in 80 participants from a student population. Ostracism led to moderately enhanced subjective stress and negative mood but not to alterations on objective markers of stress. By contrast, underlying psychopathology levels were associated with substantially stronger alterations on subjective stress markers and were additionally associated with reduced eye gaze at virtual agents' heads, larger pupil size, larger high-frequency pupil-size variability, higher heart rate and reduced high-frequency heart-rate variability. Effects for social anxiety, general anxiety and depression levels were overall similar with largest effects on objective stress markers linked to general anxiety. These findings contest the suitability of the Cyberball game as a model for real-life ostracism but demonstrate the utility of gaze and physiological data in predicting psychopathology levels during interactions in VR. These findings furthermore highlight the need for data security solutions when using social VR applications where rich data streams are exposed publicly
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Stronger reactivity to social gaze in virtual reality compared to a classical laboratory environment
Full text linkPeople show a robust tendency to gaze at other human beings when viewing images or videos, but were also found to relatively avoid gaze at others in several real‐world situations. This discrepancy, along with theoretical considerations, spawned doubts about the appropriateness of classical laboratory‐based experimental paradigms in social attention research. Several researchers instead suggested the use of immersive virtual scenarios in eliciting and measuring naturalistic attentional patterns, but the field, struggling with methodological challenges, still needs to establish the advantages of this approach. Here, we show using eye‐tracking in a complex social scenario displayed in virtual reality that participants show enhanced attention towards the face of an avatar at near distance and demonstrate an increased reactivity towards her social gaze as compared to participants who viewed the same scene on a computer monitor. The present study suggests that reactive virtual agents observed in immersive virtual reality can elicit natural modes of information processing and can help to conduct ecologically more valid experiments while maintaining high experimental control
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
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