Christofi Maria, Michael-Grigoriou Despina, Kyrlitsias Christos
GET Lab, Department of Multimedia and Graphic Arts, Cyprus University of Technology, Limassol, Cyprus.
Research Centre on Interactive Media Smart Systems and Emerging Technologies - RISE, Nicosia, Cyprus.
Front Psychol. 2020 Jun 5;11:1242. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01242. eCollection 2020.
Perspective taking techniques have been used to transport people into imaginary situations and the lives of others. Virtual Reality provides an immersive way to virtually experience the lives of stigmatized by society members. Through the support of sensorimotor contingencies, people can use natural movements to view and interact with the virtual world around them. In this study, we compared a perspective-taking immersive Virtual Reality system which supports a number of sensorimotor contingencies (SC group) with a perspective-taking desktop system of the same application but without support of any sensorimotor contingencies (NSC group), to investigate the effect of the supported sensorimotor contingencies in promoting empathy and positive attitudes toward drug users. Results demonstrate a strong correlation between closeness to the drug user and empathy in the SC group. In both groups there were a within group significant change in their reported attitudes before and after their exposure. Finally, participants in the SC condition reported significantly higher levels of Place Illusion (PI), body ownership, agency and plausibility of people. Further research is needed to investigate how sensorimotor contingencies can be exploited to the fullest to be used as an effective method to induce empathy and change attitudes toward stigmatized by society people.
换位思考技巧已被用于将人们带入想象的情境和他人的生活中。虚拟现实提供了一种沉浸式方式，让人们能够虚拟体验被社会成员污名化者的生活。在感觉运动偶联的支持下，人们可以使用自然动作来查看周围的虚拟世界并与之互动。在本研究中，我们将一个支持多种感觉运动偶联的换位思考沉浸式虚拟现实系统（SC组）与一个相同应用但不支持任何感觉运动偶联的换位思考桌面系统（NSC组）进行比较，以研究支持的感觉运动偶联在促进对吸毒者的同理心和积极态度方面的作用。结果表明，在SC组中，与吸毒者的亲近程度和同理心之间存在很强的相关性。两组在接触前后报告的态度在组内均有显著变化。最后，处于SC条件的参与者报告的位置错觉（PI）、身体所有权、能动性和人物可信度水平显著更高。需要进一步研究如何充分利用感觉运动偶联，将其作为一种诱导同理心和改变对被社会污名化者态度的有效方法。
