NYU Abu DhabiのBanakou博士とArts et Métiers ParisTechのGorisse博士が来訪されました

NYU Abu Dhabiから、Domna Banakou博士が、Arts et Métiers ParisTechから、Geoffrey Gorisseが来訪されました。研究室の見学と、最新のXR研究に関する講演をしていただきました。

講演の詳細は下記の通りです。

Title: Transforming Behavior and Implicit Attitudes with Immersive Technologies

Abstract: Immersive technologies like virtual reality (VR) offer powerful new methods for influencing behavior and reshaping implicit attitudes. Over the past decade, VR has been widely explored as a tool for enhancing empathy, often by placing users in the perspective of others — particularly members of marginalized or disadvantaged groups. While this “empathy machine” approach has gained attention, it has also raised ethical and psychological concerns, especially when it leads to superficial understanding or fails to generate lasting behavioral change. In this talk, I will present a series of experimental studies that move beyond passive empathy models to explore how immersive technologies can be used to actively transform behavior and implicit social attitudes. I introduce the Golden Rule Embodiment Paradigm (GREP) — a novel framework in which participants experience harm they have caused or ignored from the embodied perspective of the victim. Beyond social attitudes, immersive technologies also hold promise for improving quality of life, particularly among sensitive populations. I will share findings from ongoing work with individuals undergoing stroke rehabilitation and those living with schizophrenia, demonstrating how VR-based interventions can support therapeutic goals, enhance engagement, and help restore functional abilities and social connection. Together, these examples highlight the potential of immersive technologies not only as experimental tools but also as meaningful interventions — aimed at fostering empathy, correcting biases, and improving lives across diverse contexts.

Bio: Dr. Domna Banakou is Visiting Assistant Professor of Interactive Media at NYU Abu Dhabi. Before she was a postdoctoral researcher at the EVENT-LAb at the University of Barcelona. Dr. Banakou completed her PhD in clinical psychology and psychobiology at the University of Barcelona. She also holds a MSc degree in computer graphics, vision and imaging from University College London, UK, and a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the Ionian University, Greece. She was awarded a major three-year Spanish doctoral grant for her research, and she has won many other prizes for her academic achievements. She has collaborated with researchers internationally and first-authored research papers published in distinguished peer-reviewed journals and conferences, including two articles in PNAS and other articles in Nature Scientific Reports, Current Directions in Psychological Science, and Royal Society Open Science among others. She has given invited talks at esteemed international scientific meetings, and her research has been featured on major media channels in Spain and abroad (BBC, The New Yorker, The Psychologist), including a documentary film (BIAS). She combines technical expertise and experience in research methodologies to understand and promote the use of virtual reality in the fields of psychology and cognitive neuroscience. She is especially interested in the topic of bodily representation, exploring the perceptual, behavioural and higher-level cognitive correlates of body ownership illusions.