Leon Kroczek

Frontiers | Virtual Bodies for Real Humans - Avatars, Sensations and Emotions Our bodies are fundamental to how we experience and interact with the physical world, and they shape the way our minds develop. The human brain develops toge...

Submit here: www.frontiersin.org/research-top...

#VR #Neuroscience #Embodiment #Science #VRresearch

More research is needed to show (1) what is happening at the neural level with these representations, (2) which other factors can affect action spaces, and (3) which circumstances can lead to a change in representational structure - if any.

We think that being in a specific environment may modulate action spaces of corresponding actions by increasing robustness of represented actions, but only if agents already are familiar with the actions.

We observed higher inter-individual consistency sorting kitchen actions while being situated in virtual kitchens - but not the other way around. Similar effects have been observed in ornithologists when sorting birds, compared to novices. However, no structural changes in action spaces.

Actions are thought to be represented in multi-dimensional action spaces. We asked participants to perform multi-arrangement tasks, sorting kitchen and workshop actions, while being situated in virtual kitchens and workshops.

New preprint! My first time using #virtualreality: we investigate how scene context / being in a (virtual) environment affects action representations.

Together with @leonkroczek.bsky.social, Michael Roidl, and Angelika Lingnau @uniregensburg.bsky.social

Read here: doi.org/10.31234/osf...

Delighted to share our new Perspective article @natrevneuro.nature.com, led by the great @edoardochidichimo.bsky.social : "Towards an informational account of interpersonal coordination". With @loopyluppi.bsky.social, Pedro Mediano, @introspection.bsky.social, Victoria Leong and Richard Bethlehem.

Auditory illusions: new research discovers how our ears play tricks on us Without visual clues, our ears mishear sounds produced in front of us. Knowing more about why this happens will give new insights into how the brain works.

Here is a short piece in the Conversation about the Spoon Illusion: doi.org/10.64628/AA....

#psychscisky #neuroskyence but not-really #visionscience

Social Context Matters for Turn‐Taking Dynamics: A Comparative Study of Autistic and Typically Developing Children Engaging in fluent conversation is a surprisingly complex task that requires interlocutors to promptly respond to each other in a way that is appropriate to the social context. In this study, we dise...

Conversational turn-taking feels effortless, but it's a complex dance. We find social context—who you're talking to and what you're talking about—fundamentally changes conversational dynamics in both autistic & TD children. 1/

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... w @chrismmcox.bsky.social

#wuertual25 just started!
Looking forward to an interesting and inspiring 3 days ahead 🚀

Affective interactions with AI controlled conversational agents in Virtual Reality | Adjunct Proceedings of the 25th ACM International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents

It was fun to join @acm-iva.bsky.social for a workshop this year!

If you are interested in #AI embodied conversational agents and #emotions in #VR check out our paper:

dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/...

Frontiers | AffectTracker: real-time continuous rating of affective experience in immersive virtual reality Subjective experience is key to understanding affective states, characterized by valence and arousal. Traditional experiments using post-stimulus summary rat...

📢Our peer-reviewed article about the AffectTracker is finally out! 😲🕹️📈
Traditional methods for rating emotion often miss the dynamic, moment-to-moment nature of feelings. We designed a tool to capture this continuous affective experience in real-time during dynamic emotional stimulation.

Virtual reality in cognitive and affective neuroscience Technological advances are making the use of virtual reality (VR) easier and more affordable for many research institutions. Such applications allow f…

Interested in VR research? @martandreatta.bsky.social and me edited a special issue on "Virtual reality in cognitive and affective neuroscience" for Behavioural Brain Research. Read the editorial here www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Besides replicating our previous study doi.org/10.1016/j.bi...
, we also made an interesting observation:

When sending an emoji per button press we found an increase in EMG activity in the corresponding facial muscle

😀 -> M. Zygomatiucs
😠 -> M- Corrugator

This work originated in a undergrad course on experimental psychology. I'm super proud of my students (and now co-authors) who continued to work on this with me - even when the course was long over

<em>Psychophysiology</em> | SPR Journal | Wiley Online Library Communicating emotional intentions via emojis influences how people evaluate and mimic facial expressions during social interactions. Sending a smile emoji increased pleasantness and mimicry of happy...

Check out our new paper on communicative intentions in social interactions!

Sending emojis 😀/😐/😠 to a virtual agent modulated mimicry and evaluation of a facial expression received in response!

doi.org/10.1111/psyp...

@biodgps-dgpa.bsky.social @therealspr.bsky.social

I've said it before, and I will say it again:

It's astonishing how emotionally aversive revisions are, even in the best possible case (reviewers are positive and have very actionable remarks).

Or at least that's how I work; if anybody has some good recommendations for coping, do let me know 😂

But the personas also influenced participants' behavior Participants also talked more when conversing with teh extraverted vs. introverted agents

Interestingly, the two personas changed how participants evaluated the virtual agent: The extraverted model was rated as more pleasant.

The LLM was prompted to be either extraverted and talkative or introverted and less talkative.

Using the NEO-FFI as a manipulation check confirmed these differences. The extraverted model also produced more words

We used #embodied #conversational #agents in #VirtualReality.

By combining speech2text, speech-synthesis, and lip-synced animations for #Metahumans our participants engaged in real-time conversations with a virtual human

Our paper on persona effects in face-to-face social interactions between humans and #LLM-controlled virtual agents is now published in Computers in Human Behavior!
🗣️🤖

doi.org/10.1016/j.ch...

#VirtualReality
#SocialInteraction #Human-AI #HCI #LLM

#VRresearch

If you‘re working with XR in the context of research and happen to be at #PuG2025 – I suggest you drop by at my poster about our EDIA toolbox @ediatoolbox.bsky.social .
Let’s chat, connect, collaborate. Not in the area? Check out the poster below and reach out digitally: edia-toolbox.github.io

It was really fun! Thanks to all contributors

I might be biased, but what an inspiring #VR symposium at #PuG25 🤩
This field still develops so fast 🚀as showcased by the integration of neurophysiology, multi-user settings and clinical application.
Thanks to @martandreatta.bsky.social, @leonkroczek.bsky.social, @michaelgaebler.com and Marius Rubo!

New preprint!

Here we investigate sustained threat responses elicited by social contexts in #VirtualReality looking at:

🧠🌊 Neural Oscillations
🔊Fear potentiated startle
💦 SCL
🗓️Self-report

All measures show successful fear learning by social contexts ✅

Neural and Affective Dynamics of Social Context Conditioning in Virtual Reality: https://osf.io/sftu3

www.pug2025.org/sessions/the...

Excited about all #PUG25 @biodgps-dgpa.bsky.social posts coming in!

Check out our symposium "The Best of Both Worlds? Bridging Behavior and Physiology Using Immersive #VirtualReality"
🗓️Friday 14:30-16:00

@sabrinagado.bsky.social
@michaelgaebler.com
Marius Rubo
@martandreatta.bsky.social