ausblenden:
Schlagwörter:
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Zusammenfassung:
The ultimate goal of almost all psychological research is to understand human behavior in real life. Yet, experiments require highly controlled experimental conditions for scientific reasoning that have often little resemblance with real life. One way to overcome this impasse is by means of virtual reality (VR). VR allows the creation of experimental setups in which participants can behave more naturally. While these additional degrees of freedom for the participants’ behavior lead to a more ecologically valid experiment, they give rise to new challenges. I will report about our experiences of using VR to examine social cognitive processes, which include the advantages and disadvantages of this technology. I will highlight that the use VR technologies in psychological research needs to be accompanied by appropriate psychophysical methods (e.g. adaptation) and analysis that allow firm scientific reasoning. The presented studies will focus on examining cognitive representations supporting social interactions.