Marine TAFFOU soutient sa thèse de doctorat, réalisée à l'Ircam au sein de l'équipe Espaces acoustiques et cognitifs, thèse dirigée et encadrée par Isabelle Viaud-Delmon, intitulée :
" Inducing feelings of fear with virtual reality: the influence of multisensory stimulation on negative emotional experience "
La soutenance de thèse se fait devant un jury composé de :
Olaf BLANKE - Rapporteur
Titulaire de la Chaire de la fondation Bertarelli en Neuroprosthétique cognitive, EPFL
Professeur à l'Université de Genève, Suisse
Stéphane BOUCHARD - Rapporteur
Titulaire de la Chaire de Recherche du Canada en Cyberpsychologie Clinique
Professeur régulier à l'UQO, Canada
Yann COELLO - Examinateur
Professeur des Universités - Université Lille III, France
Stéphanie DUBAL - Examinateur
Chargée de Recherche, CNRS, France
Vincent HAYWARD - Examinateur
Professeur des Universités, UPMC, France
Ana TAJADURA-JIMÉNEZ - Examinateur
ESRC Future Research Leader
UCL, United Kingdom
Isabelle VIAUD-DELMON - Directeur
Directeur de Recherche, CNRS, France
Abstract:
In a natural environment, affective events often convey emotional cues through multiple sensory modalities: the aggressiveness of a dog has both visual and auditory manifestations. Yet, the effect of multisensory affective events on the conscious emotional experience (feelings) they induce remains relatively undiscovered. The research presented in this thesis exploited the unique advantages of virtual reality techniques to examine the negative emotional experience induced by auditory-visual aversive events embedded in a natural context. In natural contexts, the spatial distance between the perceiver and the affective stimuli is an important factor, given that events located at close or far distances are represented differently in the brain. Consequently, the present research included the investigation of the relationship between affect, multisensory presentation and space.
A first study using virtual reality tested the influence of auditory-visual aversive stimuli on negative emotional experience. A second study explored the effect of excessive fear on the representation of close space. A third study examined the effect of auditory-visual stimuli on negative emotional experience as a function of their location at close or far distances from the perceiver.
Overall, it was found that negative emotional experience is modulated by the sensory and spatial characteristics of aversive events. Multisensory aversive events amplify negative feelings only when they are located at close distances from the perceiver. Moreover, excessive fear related to an event extends the space, wherein the event is represented as close.
Taken together, the present research provides new information about affective processing and suggests that sensory and spatial factors are important variables to take into account in the investigation of affect. It also exposes virtual reality as a relevant tool for the study of human affect. Virtual reality might help us to better understand affective processing by providing more ecological stimulation and thus allowing for the investigation of factors seemingly involved in everyday human affective experience, such as spatial and sensory factors. Moreover, the findings can be directly exploited in research on virtual reality-based therapy and help developing refined virtual environments for the treatment of emotional disorders.
Keywords: auditory-visual integration, conscious emotional experience, fear, near space, virtual reality, virtual reality exposure therapy