Postdoctoral Fellowship: Desensitizing Trauma Sufferers

美国关于创伤士兵治疗的丑闻让美国公众意识到战争苦难的普遍性。作为回应，一些在美国自称为“虚拟治疗师”的医生；开创了“虚拟现实暴露”疗法（VRE）。在VRE中，一个人戴着一个耳机，它可以投射出高清的环绕声视觉效果，以及与他或她日常生活中困扰的特定战争事件相似的气味。临床医生正在使用虚拟现实技术进行触觉实验，让创伤患者在虚拟世界的表面安全环境中，对痛苦的场景进行虚拟暴露和脱敏。如果说弗洛伊德的精神分析提供了一种将自我视为个体和内在的方式，那么VR暴露疗法就是一种假体，它将自我重新配置为一种体外体验和虚拟暴露的场所。博士后艾米丽·科恩会问：虚拟现实暴露在哪些方面引入了自我的新配置，这种新自我的社会含义是什么？科恩将在加州圣地亚哥的VR医疗中心进行人种学研究和触觉训练。她的研究方法包括跟随设计师和临床医生，拍摄日常活动，进行深入采访，以及为临床试验做志愿者。科恩将开发一种新的研究方法，她称之为“原型设计”，这是虚拟现实设计师常用的术语。原型结合了一个类别或事物的最具代表性的属性。利用格式塔心理学的理论，科恩将绘制草图，代表她所学到的VRE的原型模型，然后要求设计师对其进行修改。通过要求VR设计师纠正和完成她的图纸，科恩将学习设计师如何构建虚拟现实。科恩的研究为人类/技术界面的社会理论做出了贡献，并为美国战时医学中VRE的社会影响的公共政策提供了信息。她的工作有助于医学人类学和科学技术研究。这项研究将通过装置/纪录片展览进行广泛传播。

Scandals in the U.S. about the treatment of traumatized soldiers have alerted the American public to the pervasiveness of war suffering. In response, some medical practitioners, who refer to themselves as "virtual healers" in the U.S.; have pioneered "Virtual Reality Exposure" therapy (VRE). In VRE, a person wears a headset that projects hi-definition visuals surround sound, and smells that approximate the particular war event that haunts his or her daily life. Using VR, clinicians are experimenting with haptics, to virtually expose and desensitize trauma sufferers to distressing scenarios within the apparent safety of virtual worlds. If Freudian psychoanalysis provided a way to see the self as individual and interior, VR exposure therapies are a kind of prosthetic that reconfigures the self as an out of body experience and a site for virtual exposure. Postdoctoral fellow Emily Cohen will ask: In what ways does VR exposure introduce new configurations of the self and what are the social implications of this new self?Cohen will conduct ethnographic research and train in haptics at the VR Medical Center in San Diego, California. Her research methods include shadowing designers and clinicians, videotaping daily activities, conducting in-depth interviews, and volunteering for clinical trials. Cohen will develop a new research method she calls "prototyping," a term used among VR designers. A prototype combines the most representative attributes of a category or thing. Using theories developed in Gestalt psychology, Cohen will sketch drawings representing a prototypic model of what she has learned about VRE and then ask designers to correct it. By asking VR designers to correct and complete her drawings, Cohen will learn how designers construct virtual realities.Cohen's research contributes to a social theory of human/technology interfaces and informs public policy on the social implications of VRE in U.S. wartime medicine. Her work contributes to medical anthropology and science and technology studies. This research will have wide dissemination through an installation/documentary film exhibit.