I am currently working as a postdoc researcher with Mark Levine on a 3 year EPSRC grant:Visual and Behavioural Fidelity of Virtual Humans with Applications to Bystander Intervention in Violent Emergencies. This work is carried out in conjunction with Prof Mel Slater (UCL) Prof Jian Zhang (Bournemouth Media School). This project involves conducting a number of experiments investigating bystander behaviour in violent emergencies in a real life setting and also in an Immersive Virtual Environment (virtual reality). As virtual environments create conditions in which participants can be exposed to violence in an ethically acceptable manner they allow us to examine participants behaviour in real time. We hope to determine if experiments conducted in virtual reality produce similar patterns of bystander intervention as found in a real situation. This work builds on previous research that has shown replicated the famous Milgram Obedience experiment in virtual reality (Slater, Antley, Davison, Swapp, Guger, Barker, Postrang, & Sanchez-Vives, 2006).

Other Interests

• Experimental methodologies as tools for social psychological research
• Implicit and explicit cognition and their impact on behaviour
• Experimental analysis of human behaviour
• Evidence-based measures of behavioural change
• Behavioural and cognitive psychotherapies, with a special interest in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy