Reducing risk and improving maternal perspective-taking and empathy using virtual embodiment

Abstract

The ability to perspective-take (cognitive awareness of another’s state) and empathise (emotional/affective response) are important characteristics for sensitive, co-operative and constructive parenting, which assists in developing adaptive functioning for children. For the first time, immersive virtual reality was used to place parents in the position of a child in order to assess impact on perspective-taking and empathy. This novel study was conducted with 20 non-high risk Spanish mothers (a pilot study with 12 mothers is reported in supplementary files). Mothers were virtually embodied as a 4-year-old child, experienced from the first-person perspective and with virtual and real body movements synchronised. They interacted with a ‘mother avatar’, which responded either in a Positive or Negative way. Participants reported a strong body ownership illusion for the child body that led to cognitive, emotional and physical reactions. Experiencing negative maternal behavior increased levels of empathy. In addition, the Negative mother led to increased feelings of fear of violence. Physiological data indicated greater stress in the Negative than Positive condition. Although further research is required to assess the effectiveness of such methods, any improvement in empathy that leads to a change in parenting behavior has the potential to impact on developmental outcomes for children.

First-Person Virtual Embodiment Modulates the Cortical Network that Encodes the Bodily Self and Its Surrounding Space during the Experience of Domestic Violence

“…Research has shown that even when the virtual body has a different age, gender or race, the body 77 ownership illusion leads people to take on the perspective and characteristics of the virtual character 78 (Banakou et al, 2013;Hamilton-Giachritsis et al, 2018). This type of training has also been utilized in 79 individuals with a reduced ability to take on others' perspectives, such as violent offenders (Seinfeld et 80 al., 2018).…”

The Ethics of Realism in Virtual and Augmented Reality

“…In VR it is possible to give people the illusion that they have another body (Yee et al, 2009;Slater et al, 2010), and that their body has changed in some fundamental way. For example, adults can have the illusion of having a child body (Banakou et al, 2013), or white people a black body (Peck et al, 2013;Banakou et al, 2016), and these experiences change the participants-for example parents changing their behavior toward their children (Hamilton-Giachritsis et al, 2018), white people becoming more (Groom et al, 2009) or less implicitly biased against black (Maister et al, 2015), domestic violence offenders improving their recognition of fear in the faces of women after being embodied as a woman subject to abuse by a virtual man (Seinfeld et al, 2018), and so on. Scientific research has tended to explore positive benefits such as these.…”

Das Potenzial der virtuellen Realität in der Verhaltenstherapie

“…Bei diesen Ansätzen wird versucht, mit Hilfe von VR emotionales Erleben zu vertiefen und so therapeutische emotionale Veränderungen anzustoßen. In eine ähnliche Richtung geht die Nutzung des Embodiment zur Modifikation von Interaktionsmustern mit sich selbst und anderen [55,56]. "Embodiment" bezeichnet eine VR-Methode, bei der die Nutzer eine neue Perspektive auf sich und die Umwelt erleben, indem sie in der VR-Simulation einen Körper zugewiesen bekommen, der von ihrem eigenen abweicht (z.…”

“…"Embodiment" bezeichnet eine VR-Methode, bei der die Nutzer eine neue Perspektive auf sich und die Umwelt erleben, indem sie in der VR-Simulation einen Körper zugewiesen bekommen, der von ihrem eigenen abweicht (z. B. anderes Lebensalter, anderes Geschlecht, andere Hautfarbe [56,57]). Die Akzeptanz fremder oder simulierter Körperteile in das eigene Körperbild ist in der Psychologie umfassend untersucht worden.…”