Periodic Reporting for period 1 - PSI (Personified Self Interaction)
Reporting period: 2016-07-01 to 2017-12-31
Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project
It is normally the case that we can give better advice to others than we can to ourselves. We can often better help others than ourselves to resolve a problem or to come up with a creative idea. Although we constantly talk to ourselves on the inside, we are bound to our habitual ways of thinking, and find it difficult to step outside of ourselves and perceive issues from a different point of view. PSI ('Personified Self Interaction') has advanced a Virtual Reality (VR) technique first introduced in the earlier ERC Advanced Grant TRAVERSE that supports self-communication but as if speaking to another person. In this technique you can enter the VR embodied in a virtual body that visually has a strong resemblance to your own. You see this virtual body by looking down directly towards yourself and also in a virtual mirror. When you move your real body, the virtual body moves correspondingly. This typically gives rise to the strong illusion that the virtual body is your body. You see another virtual human character in the VR whom we refer to as the Counsellor. You can describe your issue to the Counsellor: it may be a personal issue, or a business one, or a problem in creativity, or whatever it is that you would like to talk about. While you are talking to the Counsellor its virtual body responds encouragingly. After you have finished your explanation, in the next phase you find that you are yourself in the Counsellor's body. When you look down towards your real body, or in the virtual mirror, you will see the Counsellor's body instead of your own. When you move the Counsellor's body will move. You see across the virtual room the body representing yourself, who proceeds to talk to you - in fact a replay of the speech and body movements that you just made while describing the issue. After the problem has been described you, as the Counsellor, can give an answer - just as if someone else had described an issue to you, and you respond with advice. In the next phase you are back in your own virtual body, and you see and hear the Counsellor give the advice (in a transformation of your own voice so that it sounds like someone else). In this way you can maintain a conversation, switching between the body that looks like you, and the Counsellor body, as many times as you like.
Normally the Counsellor body represents some famous person - for example, if the problem is more of a psychological one then the Counsellor might look like Sigmund Freud or Fritz Perls (the founder of Gestalt Therapy). If the problem is one of business or creativity, the Counsellor might be Ellon Musk or Steve Jobs. This is based on our scientific findings from earlier projects that the virtual body that you inhabit has influences on your ways of thinking, attitudes and behaviours.
In the PSI project we have investigated the application of this paradigm in two areas. The first is in psychological therapy, where a person engages in a self-conversation, guided by a clinical psychologist, to resolve a personal problem. The second type of application is concerned with creativity in the business world, where a person can engage in a self-conversation brain-storming session on a creative solution to a business problem, with a counsellor representing a business genius such as Steve Jobs.
With respect to the psychological application two experimental studies were carried out, one at the University of Barcelona on every day psychological problems, which included 58 participants, and one at the University of Oxford which was a small qualitative study aimed at helping patients with paranoia. The results on the larger study suggest that the method can help people with their immediate problem. In addition, focus groups were held with clinical psychologists, who themselves experienced the method, and they reached the conclusion that provided the method were put into a context for participants, so that they understood how to exploit it, that it would be a useful adjunct to existing therapeutic methods. The study at the University of Oxford reached similar conclusions - that the method was acceptable and beneficial to patients provided it were put into a context where patients were guided about how to use it. In these studies the Counsellor was a representation of Sigmund Freud.
With respect to the business application a demonstration was held at PepsiCol in New York, USA at their request and expense, where they wanted to try the method to help creativity with respect to a branding problem. Twelve Pepsi employees experienced the scenario, choosing their Counsellor as Steve Jobs. This was highly successful with those taking part reaching innovative solutions, to the extent that they have requested further trials.
The project employed the entrepreneur Mr Albert Marti to help in the formation of its business model and business case. A business plan was written, that covered: Objectives, Technology forsight, the Project plan, Inputs from the psychological studies and research phase and associated key insights, identification of business applications, the value proposition and business cases for both personal counselling and business corporate cases, and Recommendations on branding. A patent is being filed.
The project was presented through talks and a demonstration stand at three international conferences: The Aestheic of Otherness, a Gestalt therapy conference in Taormina, Sicily, September 2016 (https://www.taorminaconference2016.com/eng/(opens in new window)) Digility, Cologne, Germany, July 2017 (http://www.digility.de/index.php?id=goodtoknow&L=0%27A%3D0%27A%3D0)(opens in new window), and the International Conference on Psychological Science, Vienna, Austria, March 2017. Additionally it is at the time of writing being exhibited at the Learning Technologies conference, London, UK (February 2018) (http://www.learningtechnologies.co.uk(opens in new window)).
The project has attracted wide publicity, being reported by the BBC 9th November, 2017 (http://www.bbc.com/news/health-41915545(opens in new window)) The Guardian 7th October, 2017 (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/07/virtual-reality-acrophobia-paranoia-fear-of-flying-ptsd-depression-mental-health(opens in new window)) and VICE (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8tQHUYzUhk(opens in new window)) and in the United States (https://video.vice.com/en_us/video/how-to-get-therapy-from-sigmund-freud/5888e3772a9a555b42c9b9d5(opens in new window) video not available outside of the US).
Normally the Counsellor body represents some famous person - for example, if the problem is more of a psychological one then the Counsellor might look like Sigmund Freud or Fritz Perls (the founder of Gestalt Therapy). If the problem is one of business or creativity, the Counsellor might be Ellon Musk or Steve Jobs. This is based on our scientific findings from earlier projects that the virtual body that you inhabit has influences on your ways of thinking, attitudes and behaviours.
In the PSI project we have investigated the application of this paradigm in two areas. The first is in psychological therapy, where a person engages in a self-conversation, guided by a clinical psychologist, to resolve a personal problem. The second type of application is concerned with creativity in the business world, where a person can engage in a self-conversation brain-storming session on a creative solution to a business problem, with a counsellor representing a business genius such as Steve Jobs.
With respect to the psychological application two experimental studies were carried out, one at the University of Barcelona on every day psychological problems, which included 58 participants, and one at the University of Oxford which was a small qualitative study aimed at helping patients with paranoia. The results on the larger study suggest that the method can help people with their immediate problem. In addition, focus groups were held with clinical psychologists, who themselves experienced the method, and they reached the conclusion that provided the method were put into a context for participants, so that they understood how to exploit it, that it would be a useful adjunct to existing therapeutic methods. The study at the University of Oxford reached similar conclusions - that the method was acceptable and beneficial to patients provided it were put into a context where patients were guided about how to use it. In these studies the Counsellor was a representation of Sigmund Freud.
With respect to the business application a demonstration was held at PepsiCol in New York, USA at their request and expense, where they wanted to try the method to help creativity with respect to a branding problem. Twelve Pepsi employees experienced the scenario, choosing their Counsellor as Steve Jobs. This was highly successful with those taking part reaching innovative solutions, to the extent that they have requested further trials.
The project employed the entrepreneur Mr Albert Marti to help in the formation of its business model and business case. A business plan was written, that covered: Objectives, Technology forsight, the Project plan, Inputs from the psychological studies and research phase and associated key insights, identification of business applications, the value proposition and business cases for both personal counselling and business corporate cases, and Recommendations on branding. A patent is being filed.
The project was presented through talks and a demonstration stand at three international conferences: The Aestheic of Otherness, a Gestalt therapy conference in Taormina, Sicily, September 2016 (https://www.taorminaconference2016.com/eng/(opens in new window)) Digility, Cologne, Germany, July 2017 (http://www.digility.de/index.php?id=goodtoknow&L=0%27A%3D0%27A%3D0)(opens in new window), and the International Conference on Psychological Science, Vienna, Austria, March 2017. Additionally it is at the time of writing being exhibited at the Learning Technologies conference, London, UK (February 2018) (http://www.learningtechnologies.co.uk(opens in new window)).
The project has attracted wide publicity, being reported by the BBC 9th November, 2017 (http://www.bbc.com/news/health-41915545(opens in new window)) The Guardian 7th October, 2017 (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/07/virtual-reality-acrophobia-paranoia-fear-of-flying-ptsd-depression-mental-health(opens in new window)) and VICE (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8tQHUYzUhk(opens in new window)) and in the United States (https://video.vice.com/en_us/video/how-to-get-therapy-from-sigmund-freud/5888e3772a9a555b42c9b9d5(opens in new window) video not available outside of the US).