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Immersive virtual reality (IVR) and Metaverse applications are gaining attention in the educational field, showing potentials in transforming traditional learning methods by supporting active and experiential forms of learning. Our study, conducted within the context of an Italian university course, employs the Extended Expectation-Confirmation Model (EECM) as a theoretical framework to explore the key aspects of students' acceptance and continued intention to use IVR and Metaverse integrated learning environments in educational settings. The EECM, which bridges the gap between pre-adoption expectations and post-adoption experiences, provides a comprehensive perspective for exploring technology adoption in education. Students' attitudes were assessed before and after they completed an elective course offered by the university that delved into IVR and Metaverse applications. During the course, students explored the theoretical and practical applications of these technologies, engaging in a variety of experiences, from immersive relaxation exercises to immersive educational platforms in the emerging Metaverse. Contrary to common assumptions, pre-adoption factors like performance and effort expectancy had limited impact on expectancy confirmation. However, when students' initial expectations matched their experiences, their perceptions of the technology's usefulness, satisfaction, and confidence in its use were positively enhanced, influencing their continued intention to integrate these tools in education.

This article investigates the attribution of mental state (AMS) to an anthropomorphic robot by humans in a strategic interaction. We conducted an experiment in which human subjects are paired with either a human or an anthropomorphic robot to play an iterated Prisoner's Dilemma game, and we tested whether AMS is dependent on the robot "consistency," that is, the correspondence between the robot's verbal reaction and its behavior after a nonoptimal social outcome of the game is obtained. We find that human partners are attributed a higher mental state level than robotic partners, regardless of the partner's consistency between words and actions. Conversely, the level of AMS assigned to the robot is significantly higher when the robot is consistent in its words and actions. This finding is robust to the inclusion of psychological factors such as risk attitude and trust, and it holds regardless of subjects' initial beliefs about the adaptability of the robot. Finally, we find that when the robot apologizes for its behavior and defects in the following stage, the epistemic component of the AMS significantly increases.

Background: Virtual Reality (VR) has already emerged as an effective instrument for simulating realistic interactions, across various domains. In the field of User Experience (UX), VR has been used to create prototypes of real-world products. Here, the question is to what extent the users' experience of a virtual prototype can be equivalent to that of its real counterpart (the real product). This issue particularly concerns the perceptual, cognitive and affective dimensions of users' experiences. Methods: This exploratory study aims to address this issue by comparing the users' experience of a well-known product, i.e., the Graziella bicycle, presented either in Sumerian or Sansar VR platform, or in a physical setting. Participants' Emotional Engagement, Sense of Presence, Immersion, and Perceived Product Quality were evaluated after being exposed to the product in all conditions (i.e., Sumerian, Sansar and Physical). Results: The findings indicated significantly higher levels of Engagement and Positive Affect in the virtual experiences when compared to their real-world counterparts. Additionally, the sole notable distinction among the VR platforms was observed in terms of Realism. Conclusions: This study suggests the feasibility and potential of immersive VR environments as UX evaluation tools and underscores their effectiveness in replicating genuine real-world experiences.

As ubiquitous technology is increasingly mediating our relationships with the world and others, we argue that the sublime is struggling to find room in product design primarily aimed at commercial and transactional goals such as speed and efficiency. We suggest a new category of products to promote deeper and more meaningful experiences, specifically those offering liminality, transcendence, and personal transformation. This paper introduces a conceptual framework and three-step design approach looking at narrative participation in design through abstractions to promote, hold and deepen more complex emotions. We explore implications from a theoretical point of view and suggest product examples for how the model might be applied in practice.

Empirical research has explored the potential of the emotion of awe to shape creativity, while theoretical work has sought to understand the link between this emotion and transformation in terms of imagining new possible worlds. This branch of study relies on the transformative potential of virtual reality (VR) to examine and invite cognitive and emotional components of transformative experiences (TEs) within the interdisciplinary model of Transformative Experience Design (TED) and the Appraisal-Tendency Framework (ATF). TED suggests using the epistemic and emotional affordances of interactive technologies, such as VR, to invite TEs. The ATF can provide insight into the nature of these affordances and their relationship. This line of research draws on empirical evidence of the awe-creativity link to broaden the discourse and consider the potential impact of this emotion on core beliefs about the world. The combination of VR with these theoretical and design-oriented approaches may enable a new generation of potentially transformative experiences that remind people that they can aspire to more and inspire them to work toward imagining and creating a new possible world.

Research shows that reduced exposure to natural contexts is associated with an increase in psychophysical disorders. Recent evidence suggests that even a brief experience in natural scenarios can positively affect people's health and well-being. However, natural contexts are not always easily accessible. This study investigates the effects of natural and indoor virtual environments (VREs) on psychophysiological and cognitive responses. Following a within-subject design, 34 healthy participants were exposed to two VREs (i.e., a forest and a living room) in a counterbalanced order through a head-mounted display (Oculus Rift). Participants were asked to explore the scenarios and execute a modified version of the Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test. Physiological parameters (heart rate, skin conductance level [SCL], and respiration rate) were recorded during the whole session. After the exposure to VREs, participants filled a set of visual analog scales to rate their subjective experience of presence, relaxation, and stress. Participants reported a higher perceived sense of relaxation in the virtual forest. Moreover, their SCLs were significantly higher in this environment, showing that the forest elicited higher physiological arousal than the living room. Furthermore, their SCLs were significantly higher during the attentional task in the virtual living room. The results suggest that a natural virtual environment can make people feel more relaxed and physiologically engaged than an indoor scenario. The latter instead can be linked to a performing venue, as reported for real contexts. However, these changes were not related to modulations of attentional performance.

Since Mark Zuckerberg's announcement about the development of new three-dimensional virtual worlds for social communication, a great debate has been raised about the promise of such a technology. The metaverse, a term formed by combining meta and universe, could open a new era in mental health, mainly in psychological disorders, where the creation of a full-body illusion via digital avatar could promote healthcare and personal well-being. Patients affected by body dysmorphism symptoms (i.e., eating disorders), social deficits (i.e. autism) could greatly benefit from this kind of technology. However, it is not clear which advantage the metaverse would have in treating psychological disorders with respect to the well-known and effective virtual reality (VR) exposure therapy. Indeed, in the last twenty years, a plethora of studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of VR technology in reducing symptoms of pain, anxiety, stress, as well as, in improving cognitive and social skills. We hypothesize that the metaverse will offer more opportunities, such as a more complex, virtual realm where sensory inputs, and recurrent feedback, mediated by a "federation" of multiple technologies - e.g., artificial intelligence, tangible interfaces, Internet of Things and blockchain, can be reinterpreted for facilitating a new kind of communication overcoming self-body representation. However, nowadays a clear starting point does not exist. For this reason, it is worth defining a theoretical framework for applying this new kind of technology in a social neuroscience context for developing accurate solutions to mental health in the future.

The existing interventions for informal caregivers assist with managing health outcomes of the role burden. However, the deeper meaning-making needs of informal caregivers have been generally neglected. This paper reflects on the meaning-making needs of informal caregivers, through the theory of narrative identity, and proposes a new approach – the Transformative Video Design technique delivered via video storytelling. Transformative Video Design assists informal caregivers to re-create a cohesive caregiving story and incorporate it into the narrative identity. The technique is used as a stimulus for triggering the self-re-structure within the narrative identity and facilitating role transformation.

The sublime – the mixed aesthetic experience of uplift and elevation in response to a powerful or vast object that otherwise is experienced as menacing – has nurtured philosophical discourse for centuries. One of the major philosophical issues concerns whether the sublime is best thought of as a subjective response or as a stimulus. Recently, psychology has conceived of the sublime as an emotion, often referred to as awe, arising from natural or artistic stimuli that are great, rare, and/or vast. However, it has not yet been empirically demonstrated whether two major elicitors of the sublime – nature and art – differ in inducing this state. In order to experimentally compare nature and art, we exposed 50 participants to sublimity-inducing content in two different formats (nature-based and art-based) using 360° videos. We compared Vincent Van Gogh’s The Starry Night with a photorealistic version of the actual place depicted in the painting, Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. We measured participants’ emotional responses before and after each exposure, as well as the sense of presence. The nature-based format induced higher intensity emotional responses than the art-based format. This study compares different sublime stimuli (nature vs. art) for eliciting the sublime.

In this study we addressed the psychological impact of transformative learning (Mezirow, 1994, 2000) resulting from study abroad experience in a group of Italian university students before leaving (T1) on a six-month international program to different countries between 2016-2017, immediately after return (T2), and six months after return (T3). The core dimension of transformative change, i.e., perspective transformation (Mezirow, 1981), was measured as higher social perspective taking propensity and confidence; lower intercultural apprehension. Psycholinguistic impact consisted in higher second language self-efficacy and lower second language speaking anxiety. 64% of students reported undergoing a transformative experience. The study of the role of positive emotions in the transformative learning experience showed higher levels of joy, contentment and pride and higher psychological flexibility. Most students did not report a transformative experience triggered by a disorienting dilemma with feelings of discontent as conceptualized in Mezirow’s original model, but a gradual adoption of new actions. These results were partially in line with recent studies on alternative processes of transformative learning. Six months after return the psychological impact of the transformative learning proved stable, with an increase in the positive emotion Love, connected to feelings of trust, closeness, reliability.

With the rapid increase of the aging population in Italy, the number of subjects with cognitive deficits also increases. Two of the most damaged cognitive domains since the first phase of decline are Executive Functions and Spatial Memory. The general aim of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of a novel VR-based mixed training protocol for improving executive functions and spatial memory in patients with cognitive decline. To achieve this objective, the neuropsychological performance of two groups of a subjects with cognitive decline were compared before and at the end of the training period. One group underwent a classic rehabilitation protocol, the other underwent the new VR-based protocol. The results showed an improve in executive functioning in the VR group after the training period

While there is little doubt that our lives are becoming increasingly digital, whether this change is for the better or for the worse is far from being settled. Rather, over the past years concerns about the personal and social impacts of technologies have been growing, fueled by dystopian Orwellian scenarios that almost on daily basis are generously dispensed by major Western media outlets. According to a recent poll involving some 1,150 experts, 47% of respondents predict that individuals' well-being will be more helped than harmed by digital life in the next decade, while 32% say people's well-being will be more harmed than helped. Only 21% of those surveyed indicated that the impact of technologies on people well-being will be negligible compared to now (Pew Research Center, 2018). Although many scientific efforts have been devoted to acknowledging the risks of digital technologies, the question of how computers could be used to improve people's well-being has been much less explored. This was the main motivation for the development of a novel research area—Positive Technology—which aims at investigating how ICT-based applications and services can be used to foster positive growth of individuals, groups and institutions (Botella et al., 2012; Riva et al., 2012; Gaggioli et al., 2017). This area resulted from the convergence of two main trends. First, the emerging interest in the scientific understanding of conditions and processes that contribute to people happiness and well-being, chiefly represented by the fast-growing movement of Positive Psychology. The second trend was the increasing recognition, in the field of Human-Computer Interaction, of the central importance that human experience, values, and ethical concerns have in the design, development and use of interactive systems. The integration of these two perspectives has led to new questions and possibilities concerning how digital technologies could help shaping positive human functioning, strengths, per

Frailty is a pre-clinical condition that worsens physical health and quality of life. One of the most frequent symptoms of frailty is an increased risk of falling. In order to reduce this risk, we propose an innovative virtual reality motor rehabilitation program based on an immersive tool. All exercises will take place in the CAVE, a four-screen room with a stationary bike. The protocol will include two types of exercises for the improvement of balance: “Positive Bike” and “Avoid the Rocks.” We will choose evaluation scales related to the functional aspects and subjective perception of balance. Our aim is to prove that our innovative motor rehabilitation protocol is as effective as or more effective than classical rehabilitation.

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Frailty is a clinical condition affecting the elderly population which results in an increased risk of falls. Previous studies demonstrated that falls prevention programs are effective, but they suffer from low adherence, especially when subjects have to train unsupervised in their homes. To try to improve treatment adherence, virtual reality and social media have been proposed as promising strategies for the increase of users’ motivation and thus their willingness to practice. In the context of smart homes, this work presents SocialBike, a virtual reality-based application aimed at improving the clinical outcomes of older frail adults in their houses. Indeed, SocialBike is integrated in the “house of the future” framework and proposes a Dual Task training program in which the users are required to cycle on a stationary bike while recognizing target animals or objects appearing along the way. It also implements the possibility of training with other users, thus reducing the risk of social isolation. Within SocialBike, users can choose the multiplayer mode they prefer (i.e., collaborative or competitive), and are allowed to train following their own attitude. SocialBike’s validation, refinement, and business model are currently under development, and are briefly discussed as future works.

VR is a useful tool for the improvement and customization of the classical clinical settings. The aim of this paper is to present an innovative virtual-based cognitive rehabilitation protocol. We also present the results of a patient, SB, who showed an improvement in the results of the test in both the target and non-target cognitive domains.

We describe the implementation and preliminary validation of an interactive platform – COLLEGO – to investigate joint action in a goal-oriented collaborative task. The platform records the interaction sequence of two partners alternating their leader/follower role. Two sensitized wooden surfaces are placed in front of each participant, who can use 6 cubes to build the tower. Any time a cube is picked/released, time stamp (ms) and position of selected objects are recorded. A case study showing how data are collected and analyzed to study dyad performance during the task is described. Finally, potential applications of the proposed solution are discussed.

Although it is noted that interpersonal sensorimotor coordination can influence several high-level socio-cognitive processes, its impact on creative collaboration is nearly unexplored. Here, we investigated the effects of a form of sensorimotor coordination, that is, sensorimotor synchronization, on a subsequent creative collaboration task. 60 pairs (n total = 120 participants) formed by previously unacquainted individuals performed a tower-building task either jointly or alone, followed by a dyadic creativity task. Tower building time in the joint condition was recorded through a sensorized platform and creativity performance was evaluated by two independent raters based on the quantity and quality of generated ideas. We controlled for gender composition and for the disposition to cooperate and to adopt a creative, analytical style. Results showed that male-male couples were more creative after the joint-action condition, whereas female-female and mixed-gender couples were more creative after the solo condition. Regression analyses of tower building time on creativity performance revealed that building time was a significant predictor of creativity dimensions in male-male and in mixed-gender couples but did not predict creative performance in female-female couples. Overall, these findings suggest that the manipulation of sensorimotor coordination can influence performance in a subsequent creative collaboration task, with the nature, and magnitude of this effect depending on the gender composition of the dyads. These results have potential implications for the design of sensorimotor-based strategies to enhance dyadic creative performance in several contexts, especially for the organizational settings.

In this article, the authors elaborate on 2 ideas advanced in Schneider's (2017) innovative article on the resurgence of awe in psychology. Taking a cue from his claim to recover a "slow simmer form" of awe (i.e., deeper, destabilizing, challenging, and ambiguous) using mixed-methods, the authors highlight the need to reframe the concept of awe as closer to an experience than to an emotion. This implies focusing not only on a mixed-methodology to study awe but also on a new way of inducing it. Specifically, if awe is considered as an experience, an experiential approach would be required to induce it. The authors provided examples of recent studies that relied on Virtual Reality (VR) as an effective experiential approach to elicit the "slow simmer form" of awe in the lab. A controlled induction of awe through VR can lead to more intense awe, thus drawing near the desired "slow simmer form." Schneider's claim can provide the theoretical underpinning to support this new conceptualization of awe as an experience as well as its experimental investigation.

Although it is noted that interpersonal sensorimotor coordination can influence several high-level socio-cognitive processes, its impact on creative collaboration is nearly unexplored. Here, we investigated the effects of a form of sensorimotor coordination, that is, sensorimotor synchronization, on a subsequent creative collaboration task. 60 pairs (n total = 120 participants) formed by previously unacquainted individuals performed a tower-building task either jointly or alone, followed by a dyadic creativity task. Tower building time in the joint condition was recorded through a sensorized platform and creativity performance was evaluated by two independent raters based on the quantity and quality of generated ideas. We controlled for gender composition and for the disposition to cooperate and to adopt a creative, analytical style. Results showed that male-male couples were more creative after the joint-action condition, whereas female-female and mixed-gender couples were more creative after the solo condition. Regression analyses of tower building time on creativity performance revealed that building time was a significant predictor of creativity dimensions in male-male and in mixed-gender couples but did not predict creative performance in female-female couples. Overall, these findings suggest that the manipulation of sensorimotor coordination can influence performance in a subsequent creative collaboration task, with the nature, and magnitude of this effect depending on the gender composition of the dyads. These results have potential implications for the design of sensorimotor-based strategies to enhance dyadic creative performance in several contexts, especially for the organizational settings.

We present the architecture and usability evaluation of virtual reality system—“Positive Bike”—designed for improving cognitive and motor conditions in frail elderly patients. The system consists of a cycle-ergometer integrated in an immersive virtual reality system (CAVE) which allows combining motor and cognitive exercises according to a “dual-task” paradigm. We tested the usability and user’s experience of the prototype in a pilot evaluation study that involved five elderly patients. The prototype was tested in one-session training to understand the limitations and areas for improvement of our system. The evaluation consisted in (i) usability assessment using the system usability scale; (ii) evaluation of user’s engagement using the flow state scale; and (iii) expert evaluation involving interviews with domain experts. Results showed a good usability, both for system usability scale and the semi-structured interview. The level of flow (i.e., enjoyment with the task at hand) measured using the short flow state scale, was also high. Analysis of semi-structured interview carried out with domain experts provided further indications to improve the system. Overall, these findings show that, despite some limitations, the system is usable and provides an enjoyable user’s experience.

Here we introduce the design and preliminary validation of a general-purpose architecture for affective-driven procedural content generation in Virtual Reality (VR) applications in mental health and wellbeing. The architecture supports seven commercial physiological sensing technologies and can be deployed in immersive and non-immersive VR systems. To demonstrate the concept, we developed the "The Emotional Labyrinth", a non-linear scenario in which navigation in a procedurally-generated 3D maze is entirely decided by the user, and whose features are dynamically adapted according to a set of emotional states. During navigation, affective states are dynamically represented through pictures, music, and animated visual metaphors chosen to represent and induce affective states. The underlying hypothesis is that exposing users to multimodal representations of their affective states can create a feedback loop that supports emotional self-awareness and fosters more effective emotional regulation strategies. We carried out a first study to (i) assess the effectiveness of the selected metaphors in inducing target emotions, and (ii) identify relevant psycho-physiological markers of the emotional experience generated by the labyrinth. Results show that the Emotional Labyrinth is overall a pleasant experience in which the proposed procedural content generation can induce distinctive psycho-physiological patterns, generally coherent with the meaning of the metaphors used in the labyrinth design. Further, collected psycho-physiological responses such as electrocardiography, respiration, electrodermal activity, and electromyography are used to generate computational models of users' reported experience. These models enable the future implementation of the closed loop mechanism to adapt the Labyrinth procedurally to the users' affective state.

Awe is a complex emotion characterized by feelings of vastness and a need for accommodation. The aim of this study was to investigate whether the experience of awe impacts on peculiar dimensions of creative potential in terms of creative thinking. Fifty-two university students were exposed both to an awe-inducing 3D-video and to a neutral one in a within-subject design. After each video, participants reported the intensity and type of perceived emotion and completed two verbal tasks of the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT; Torrance, 1974). A direct causal relationship between awe and creative thinking was tested using generalized linear model. Results showed that awe affected key creative thinking components—fluency, flexibility and elaboration measured by the product improvement test—compared to the neutral stimulus. Implications of these findings for future research and limitations are discussed.

It is increasingly recognized that stress has negative effects on growing numbers of people. Stress assessment is a complex issue, but different studies have shown that monitoring user psychophysiological parameter during daily life can be greatly helpful in stress evaluation. In this context, the European Collaborative Project INTERSTRESS is aimed at designing and developing advanced simulation and sensing technologies for the assessment and treatment of psychological stress, based on mobile biosensors.In this study a wearable biosensor platform able to collect physiological and behavioral parameters is reported. The developed mobile platform, in terms of hardware and processing algorithms, is described. Moreover the use of this wearable biosensor platform in combination with advanced simulation technologies, such as virtual reality, offer interesting opportunities for innovative personal health-care solutions to stress.

There has been a growing interest in assessing interpersonal communication competences, to understand how to empower them in specific domains. The aim of this study was to create an Italian adaptation of the Interpersonal Communication Competence Scale (ICCS), by Rubin & Martin. The study was designed to assess the structure of the ICCS and to determine the number of components needed to adequately describe the psychological constructs of Interpersonal Communication Competence in the Italian sample. The questionnaire was administered to 137 subjects. Adopting an analytic process using an exploratory factor analysis, the steps yield a seven factor solution composed of 26 items. We discussed results and future directions concerning interpersonal communication competence scale.

With the rapid ageing of the population, designing inclusive mobile interfaces that match accessibility requirements is an important challenge. Here, we report results of an exploratory study, which investigated the feasibility of using an “aging simulator suit” for modeling the sensorimotor limitations of elderly users interacting with a tablet application. The study involved one experimental group (“simulated ageing” condition, SA) and two normative comparison groups (“elderly control” condition, EA; and “young control” condition, YC). In the SA condition, a group of young adults (N = 60; mean age = 26.1, s.d. = 4.0) carried out a visuo-motor task while wearing the aging simulator suit, which reproduced three levels of visuo-motor impairment: (i) visual; (ii) motor; (iii) visual and motor. In the EC condition, the same visuo-motor task was executed by a sample of healthy elderly individuals (N = 20; mean age = 73.5, s.d. = 6.3). In the “young control” (YC) condition, the task was executed by a sample of young adults (N = 40; mean age = 24.6; s.d. = 4.7). Results showed that accuracy and speed of YC outperformed performance of EC and SA. Furthermore, SA approximated EC performance, suggesting that aging simulator suit may provide a reliable model of visuo-motor limitations of the normative-aged group. Implications of these findings for design practice are discussed.

Current theories of emotion generally agree that basic emotions involve several systems with a considerable degree of specificity at the psychophysiological level. Analyzing the psychophysiological profiles of emotions allowed to understand if individuals felt the target emotional states or if they perceived it into the emotional material. Here, we explored the sensitivity of autobiographical recall and videos in reproducing emotional psychophysiological specificity even in the lab. We recorded 40 participants’ psychophysiological profiles of anger, fear, joy, sadness elicited through videos and autobiographical recall, following a within subject design, in a counterbalanced order. We assessed the autonomic responding (i.e., heart rate) during each emotion induction (3 min length) using a ProComp Infinity 8-channel (Thought Technology Ltd, Montreal, Canada). The sampling rate was set at 256 Hz. We followed the guidelines of Task Force of the European Society of Cardiology and the North American Society of Pacing and Electrophysiology, to extract typical temporal and spectral HRV measures and to evaluate the response of the autonomic nervous system. Specifically, we classified the rhythms as very low frequency (VLF, <0.04 Hz), and high frequency (HF, 0.15 to 0.4 Hz) oscillations. Results showed that emotions induced through autobiographical recall could be better differentiated than those elicited using videos. We found significant interaction effects of 4 emotions × 2 conditions (video vs. autobiographical recall) measuring both sympathetic (VLF) and parasympathetic activity (HF). Autobiographical recall could recreate a differential activation of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system for each emotion, which was mostly in line with existing literature. However, videos did not allow discriminating different emotional states clearly at the psychophysiological level. These findings suggested autobiographical recall as a more suitable technique to recreate

Frailty is a new and interesting concept that describes a preclinical condition in which elderly are more vulnerable and the possibility to develop pathologies increases. Often, the physical decline is related to cognitive impairments: Subjects in this situation are defined as cognitive frail patients. The literature connected to this syndrome is growing steadily and a bibliometric analysis is needed to better understand the evolution and the current state of the art. In this article, several domains are analyzed: Authors, categories, countries, institutions and journals. An interesting scenario emerged from the data: On the one hand, outcomes show a strong interest in understanding the real diffusion of this phenomenon using demographics and statistical methods. On the other hand, it emerged the increasing application of mathematical models to the study of medical phenomena.

The increasing interest of neuroscience, cognitive science and social psychology towards the study of the body experience is providing a more comprehensive framework for the Bodily Self Consciousness (BSC), namely the experience of being in a body. In particular, it suggests that BSC is the outcome of the “body matrix” - a supramodal multi-sensory representation of the body and the space around it - which provides predictions about the expected sensory input and tries to minimize the amount of free energy (or ‘surprise’). The contents of the body matrix are modified by bottom-up prediction errors that signal mismatches between predicted and actual content of the different body representations. In this view, damage, malfunctioning, or altered feedback from and toward the body matrix might be involved in the aetiology of different clinical disturbances: from neurological disorders, such as chronic pain and neglect to psychiatric disorders, such as depression, schizophrenia, eating and weight disorders, and depersonalization/derealization disorder. In this paper we suggest that this framework provides the rationale for a new research field: “Embodied Medicine”. In Embodied Medicine advanced tools - Virtual Reality, neuro/biofeedback and different simulation/stimulation technologies – are integrated to modify the experience of being in a body with the goal of improving health and well-being.

Joint action - the cooperation with other individuals to achieve a shared motor goal, is a crucial ability for human survival. This process takes place when actors are synchronized at a sensorimotor level. However, the experiential correlates of sensorimotor synchronization are not fully understood. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between the experience of flow and social presence in a sensorimotor collaborative task. 12 female couples (mean age = 22.33; S.D. = .815) and 12 male couples (mean age = 22.88; S.D. = .789) were involved in a tower-building task across 10 consecutive trials using the COLLEGO platform [1]. Couple members alternated their leader/follower role. Platform recorded time stamp (ms) and position of each selected object when it was picked/released, providing a measure of performance. Thereafter, participants’ level of flow (Flow State Scale), an intrinsically motivating state of consciousness, and social presence (Networked Minds Social Presence Inventory), i.e., the feeling of being with other Selves in a real or virtual environment, were assessed. Flow and Social presence correlated positively at a global level. Having clear goals was negatively associated with performance, while awareness and merging with one’s own actions correlated positively with performance. Task duration correlated negatively with attentive and behavioral dimensions of social presence, but positively with cognitive and emotional dimensions. Results are discussed according to the Networked Flow model assuming a positive correlation between social presence and flow at the base of the highest levels of collaborative performance.

Previous evidence shows that combined cognitive and physical exercises (dual-task intervention, (I-DT)) potentiates cognitive performance more than either type of single training alone (Lauenroth et al., 2015). Here, we describe the rationale, the design and the implementation of the “Positive Bike”, a fully-immersive virtual reality biking experience for implementing I-DT training protocols in older patients. The system consists of a cycle-ergometer positioned within a Cave Automatic Virtual Environment (CAVE). The system also features a cloud-based platform which allows the therapist to configure the exercise parameters (i.e, duration and load). Using the Positive Bike, the patient can take a virtual ride by physically pedalling at variable paces within a simulated scenario (i.e., a park). During the virtual ride, the patient can be presented with different interactive cognitive exercises (attentional, memory etc). In one of such exercises, for example, the patient has to recognize different animals appearing on the route sides and press a button if such animal has a name beginning with a specific letter. Potential applications of Positive Bike in geriatric wellness and rehabilitation are discussed.

The emergence of social neuroscience has significantly advanced our understanding of the relationship that exists between social processes and their neurobiological underpinnings. Social neuroscience research often involves the use of simple and static stimuli lacking many of the potentially important aspects of real world activities and social interactions. Whilst this research has merit, there is a growing interest in the presentation of dynamic stimuli in a manner that allows researchers to assess the integrative processes carried out by perceivers over time. Herein, we discuss the potential of virtual reality for enhancing ecological validity while maintaining experimental control in social neuroscience research. Virtual reality is a technology that allows for the creation of fully interactive, three-dimensional computerized models of social situations that can be fully controlled by the experimenter. Furthermore, the introduction of interactive virtual characters-either driven by a human or by a computer-allows the researcher to test, in a systematic and independent manner, the effects of various social cues. We first introduce key technical features and concepts related to virtual reality. Next, we discuss the potential of this technology for enhancing social neuroscience protocols, drawing on illustrative experiments from the literature.

Awe, a complex emotion composed by the appraisal components of vastness and need for accommodation, is a profound and often meaningful experience. Despite its importance, psychologists have only recently begun empirical study of awe. At the experimental level, a main issue concerns how to elicit high intensity awe experiences in the lab. To address this issue, Virtual Reality (VR) has been proposed as a potential solution. Here, we considered the highest realistic form of VR: immersive videos. 42 participants watched at immersive and normal 2D videos displaying an awe or a neutral content. After the experience, they rated their level of awe and sense of presence. Participants' psychophysiological responses (BVP, SC, sEMG) were recorded during the whole video exposure. We hypothesized that the immersive video condition would increase the intensity of awe experienced compared to 2D screen videos. Results indicated that immersive videos significantly enhanced the self-reported intensity of awe as well as the sense of presence. Immersive videos displaying an awe content also led to higher parasympathetic activation. These findings indicate the advantages of using VR in the experimental study of awe, with methodological implications for the study of other emotions.

Numerous studies have shown an alarming prevalence of depression, anxiety, and behavior disorders in youth. Thus, prevention of psychological problems in this population becomes crucial. According to the World Health Organization (1), prevention should also include the promotion and development of the individual's strengths in order to reduce vulnerability to suffering from mental disorders. In addition, other key elements of prevention are the reach, adoption, implementation, and maintenance of interventions. The information and communication technologies, especially the Internet, have much to offer in terms of the prevention and promotion of positive mental health in adolescents. This paper reviews these fields of research-prevention, positive psychology, Internet, and adolescents-and discusses the potential of positive interventions delivered over the Internet as effective and sustainable health promotion tools. The paper provides a brief description of the systems developed so far and a summary of selected features of the studies detected in the literature review. The overall conclusions are that there is a need for more controlled studies with long-term follow-ups, the interventions should be designed considering the specific features of the target users and the specific contexts where the interventions will be delivered, and they could be enhanced by the use of other technologies, such as smartphones, sensors, or social networks.

This study aimed at using the Networked Flow (NF) model to investigate group collaboration in the context of musical bands. We analyzed the relationship between flow, social presence, structural dynamics and performance as they related to 15 bands in a rehearsal room. Flow was measured using the Flow State Scale; social presence was assessed with the Networked Minds Social Presence scale; and interpersonal communication structure (exchange of gazes and verbal orders) was assessed by means of Social Network Analysis (SNA). In addition, we considered: (a) a subjective measure of performance, rated by each member on an ad-hoc questionnaire; and (b) an expert rating of performance, based on the evaluation of audio-video recordings of each group. Findings showed the multifaceted nature of the relationship between social presence and flow. Group flow score was a significant predictor of self-reported performance, but not of expert-evaluated performance. Moreover, several correlations were found between flow, social presence and patterns of interpersonal coordination (both implicit and explicit). Specifically, SNA reveals that flow was positively related to exchanges of gazes and negatively associated with exchanges of orders. Overall, this study contributes to further elucidating the complex interplay between group flow and intersubjective dynamics in music collaboration.

More and more of our daily activities depend on some kind of inter-active device or digital service. Furthermore, the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) is not limited to the long hours that we spend at the office. Computers and other digital devices have become regular companions in our daily lives, but have they made us any happier? Interestingly, the majority of psychological studies on the impact of technologies on well-being have focused on their potential negative effects, including investigations into cyber addiction, techno-stress, violent video-games, privacy risks, etc. On the other side, less attention has been paid to the question of how interactive digital systems could be used to improve well-being of individuals and groups. Designing for digital experience that promotes psychological knowledge and theory relating to those factors known to make life more fulfilling, with the technological expertise required to turn these factors into practical services and applications. The aim of this chapter is to introduce the concepts of Positive Technology and Positive Computing and examine some illustrative approaches. We will first introduce the field of positive psychology and examine key theoretical models. Next, we will discuss the objectives and main application areas of these design approaches. Last, we will consider some key challenges and future research directions for this emergent interdisciplinary area.

If 2016 has been a golden year for virtual reality, there is reason to believe that the coming year may be even better. According to a recent market forecast by the International Data Corporation (IDC), worldwide revenues for the augmented reality and virtual reality market are projected to grow from $5.2 billion in 2016 to> $162 billion in 2020. With virtual reality becoming a mass product, it becomes crucial to understand its psychological effects on users.

Internet of Things (IoT) refers to an emerging infra-structure that allows creating networks of physical objects, enabled by micro-electrical systems, wireless communication, and Internet technologies. In this vision, objects are no longer ''inert''entities in the environment, but can communicate with each other to provide services that improve our lives.

Bringing More Transparency to Artificial Intelligence

Editoriale in rivista, nessun abstract disponibile

In the last years, there has been a growing interest in the role of selftranscendent positive emotions - such as awe, elevation and admiration - in fostering wellbeing and personal development. In particular, recent studies suggest that the experience of these emotions can promote self-improvement, prosocial behaviour and feelings of spirituality. The goal of this contribution is to introduce Computer-Mediated Self-transcendence (CMST) as a possible new research pathway in Positive Technology, which refers to the use of interactive technologies for promoting, facilitating or enhancing emotional peak experiences. Specifically, we suggest that the goal of CMST can be achieved by combining virtual reality, videogames and the languages of art, to design mediated transformative experiences that include emotional and epistemic affordances. We describe some early examples of CMST and discuss opportunities and challenges of this approach.

The first attempts at using virtual reality (VR) to support clinical change are now more than twenty years old: in the early 90s different group of researchers used VR to counter different anxiety disorders, from acrophobia to fear of flying, from spider phobia to acrophobia. Since then, different researchers have embraced VR to integrate and extend actual assessment tool and treatments in behavioral health: VR has been successfully used in anxiety disorders, stress related disorders. obesity and eating disorders. and pain management. Nevetheless, VR technology is advancing quickly. Both Oculus Rift (http://www.oculus.com) and HTC (https://www.htcvive.com/) are showcasing high-quality VR experiences at reasonable price points - less than $2000 for a fully configured system - that are now widely available to consumers. This new situation is opening a new research area - Transformative Technology - that is trying to use the potential of virtuality for enhancing the process of personal change: by completely replacing the real environment - and even the real body - with a virtual one, it induces a high level of emotional engagement and sense of presence that can improve our chances of being different.

Usability and User Experience evaluations often collect users’ opinions about products/technologies regardless of users’ intentions. Specifically, in order to analyze quality features of a technology, random users can be interviewed about experienced/expected usability, emotional responses, mental workload after or before actual use. Nevertheless, according to the Perfect Interaction Model, an emergent framework in the field of User Experience, users’ responses may vary depending on their tendency to perceive the technology as an opportunity to achieve their own personal goals. In order to test this hypothesis, seventy-one participants were asked to evaluate a website (specifically, a web service for honeymoon planning) in terms of expected usability, emotions and mental workload. Participants in the experimental group provided their evaluations identifying themselves with characters in fictional narratives containing an intention related to the main function of the website, while those in the control group evaluated it acting as impartial evaluators. Results showed that the participants in the experimental group evaluated the website as related to more intense emotions and higher mental workload. Moreover, an interaction effect appeared while considering gender: females in the experimental group considered the website less usable than control ones, while the opposite happened for males. The importance of taking into account users’ intentions prior to User Experience and Usability evaluations is discussed.

We investigated the process of Networked Flow (NF) in 10 self-selected learning teams (graduate students enrolled in an academic course on Enterprise Communication) collaborating in blended settings. The NF model suggests that teams reach maximum group creativity when participants experience high levels of flow and social presence. Moreover, the model predicts that emergence of NF is associated with specific group structural dynamics. The research protocol consisted in a longitudinal mixed-method design, which integrated: (i) the analysis of experiential features of collaborative experience (flow, social presence); (ii) the analysis of communicative interaction; (iii) the structural features of collaboration dynamics (social network indexes). Preliminary findings suggest the feasibility and potential usefulness of integrating quali-quantitative methods for the investigation of NF in creative collaboration settings.

During life, many personal changes occur. These include changing house, school, work, and even friends and partners. However, the daily experience shows clearly that, in some situations, subjects are unable to change even if they want to. The recent advances in psychology and neuroscience are now providing a better view of personal change, the change affecting our assumptive world: (a) the focus of personal change is reducing the distance between self and reality (conflict); (b) this reduction is achieved through (1) an intense focus on the particular experience creating the conflict or (2) an internal or external reorganization of this experience; (c) personal change requires a progression through a series of different stages that however happen in discontinuous and non-linear ways; and (d) clinical psychology is often used to facilitate personal change when subjects are unable to move forward. Starting from these premises, the aim of this paper is to review the potential of virtuality for enhancing the processes of personal and clinical change. First, the paper focuses on the two leading virtual technologies - augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) - exploring their current uses in behavioral health and the outcomes of the 28 available systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Then the paper discusses the added value provided by VR and AR in transforming our external experience by focusing on the high level of personal efficacy and self-reflectiveness generated by their sense of presence and emotional engagement. Finally, it outlines the potential future use of virtuality for transforming our inner experience by structuring, altering, and/or replacing our bodily self-consciousness. The final outcome may be a new generation of transformative experiences that provide knowledge that is epistemically inaccessible to the individual until he or she has that experience, while at the same time transforming the individual's worldview.

The emotion of awe is characterized by the perception of vastness and a need for accommodation, which can include a positive and/or negative valence. While a number of studies have successfully manipulated this emotion, the issue of how to elicit particularly intense awe experiences in laboratory settings remains. We suggest that virtual reality (VR) is a particularly effective mood induction tool for eliciting awe. VR provides three key assets for improving awe. First, VR provides users with immersive and ecological yet controlled environments that can elicit a sense of “presence,” the subjective experience of “being there” in a simulated reality. Further, VR can be used to generate complex, vast stimuli, which can target specific theoretical facets of awe. Finally, VR allows for convenient tracking of participants’ behavior and physiological responses, allowing for more integrated assessment of emotional experience. We discussed the potential and challenges of the proposed approach with an emphasis on VR’s capacity to raise the signal of reactions to emotions such as awe in laboratory settings.

Human to Human sensorimotor interaction can only be fully understood by modeling the patterns of bodily synchronization and reconstructing the underlying mechanisms of optimal cooperation. We designed a tower-building task to address such a goal. We recorded upper body kinematics of dyads and focused on the velocity profiles of the head and wrist. We applied Recurrence Quantification Analysis to examine the dynamics of synchronization within, and across the experimental trials, to compare the roles of leader and follower. Our results show that the leader was more auto-recurrent than the follower to make his/her behavior more predictable. When looking at the cross-recurrence of the dyad, we find different patterns of synchronization for head and wrist motion. On the wrist, dyads synchronized at short lags, and such pattern was weakly modulated within trials, and invariant across them. Head motion instead, synchronized at longer lags and increased both within and between trials: a phenomenon mostly driven by the leader. Our findings point at a multilevel nature of human to human sensorimotor synchronization, and may provide an experimentally solid benchmark to identify the basic primitives of motion, which maximize behavioral coupling between humans and artificial agents.

The goal of this study was to test the usability and efficacy of a website designed to support intergenerational reminiscence. The website allows older persons to capture, digitally archive, and share their memories encapsulated in letters, newspaper clippings, postcards, photos and videos. The evaluation involved 44 seniors and 176 children and consisted in two main phases. In the first phase, the usability of the website was assessed in a sample of elderly participants. In the second phase, the efficacy of online reminiscence was tested against a control condition, in which elderly people shared personal memories with children without the support of technology. Main dependent measures included self-esteem, loneliness and enjoyment/engagement with the activity (flow). Findings showed that the website was usable and well-accepted. However, the use of the platform did not significantly improve the effects of intergenerational reminiscence, which is an activity that participants enjoyed in itself.

The ability of “looking into the future”—namely, the capacity of anticipating future states of the environment or of the body—represents a fundamental function of human (and animal) brains. A goalkeeper who tries to guess the ball's direction; a chess player who attempts to anticipate the opponent's next move; or a man-in-love who tries to calculate what are the chances of her saying yes—in all these cases, people are simulating possible future states of the world, in order to maximize the success of their decisions or actions. Research in neuroscience is showing that our ability to predict the behavior of physical or social phenomena is largely dependent on the brain's ability to integrate current and past information to generate (probabilistic) simulations of the future. But could predictive processing be augmented using advanced technologies? In this contribution, we discuss how computational technologies may be used to support, facilitate or enhance the prediction of future events, by considering exemplificative scenarios across different domains, from simpler sensorimotor decisions to more complex cognitive tasks. We also examine the key scientific and technical challenges that must be faced to turn this vision into reality.

It is well known that obesity has a multifactorial etiology, including biological, environmental, and psychological causes. For this reason, obesity treatment requires a more integrated approach than the standard behavioral treatment based on dietary and physical activity only. To test the long-term efficacy of an enhanced cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) of obesity, including a virtual reality (VR) module aimed at both unlocking the negative memory of the body and to modify its behavioral and emotional correlates, 163 female morbidly obese inpatients (body mass index >40) were randomly assigned to three conditions: a standard behavioral inpatient program (SBP), SBP plus standard CBT, and SBP plus VR-enhanced CBT. Patients' weight, eating behavior, and body dissatisfaction were measured at the start and upon completion of the inpatient program. Weight was assessed also at 1 year follow-up. All measures improved significantly at discharge from the inpatient program, and no significant difference was found among the conditions. However, odds ratios showed that patients in the VR condition had a greater probability of maintaining or improving weight loss at 1 year follow-up than SBP patients had (48% vs. 11%, p = 0.004) and, to a lesser extent, than CBT patients had (48% vs. 29%, p = 0.08). Indeed, only the VR-enhanced CBT was effective in further improving weight loss at 1 year follow-up. On the contrary, participants who received only the inpatient program regained back, on average, most of the weight they had lost. Findings support the hypothesis that a VR module addressing the locked negative memory of the body may enhance the long-term efficacy of standard CBT.