Xinhui Hu's Dissertation Defense

With its unique capacity to provide immersive, embodied interactions that simulate lived experience, Virtual Reality (VR) has gained increasing attention as a potential instrument for building empathy. Early studies showed promising outcomes, but as the field broadened, inconsistencies and even contradictory findings emerged. Due to the complexity inherent in developing and implementing empathic VR research, identifying the sources of these inconsistencies has proven difficult. The field is thus caught in a cycle where inconsistent outcomes breed further unsuccessful attempts, which in turn cast doubt on the approach itself, with some scholars questioning whether empathic VR truly fosters resonance or merely constitutes emotional hijacking.

Addressing this issue, this dissertation unpacks the complexity through a mental model approach, focusing on the mental models of users, designers, and researchers in relation to empathic VR, and seeking insight from the conflicts and gaps among these models The study unfolds through three phases: (1) a comprehensive cross-disciplinary scoping review combined with targeted reviews of persisting confusions to expose the nodes of inconsistency, (2) the development of a targeted VR project that isolates the mechanisms underlying the confusions persisted from the first phase, and (3) experimental verification of these mechanisms.

The literature and empirical evidence converge on several core findings: (1) empathic VR is capable of evoking genuine empathy when properly designed; (2) unsuccessful outcomes are disproportionately associated with two methodological issues: the misuse of long-term trait empathy scales to measure transient state changes, and suboptimal design stemming from inaccurate adoption of prior examples with incompatible frameworks; and (3) the ethical concerns surrounding empathic VR are not intrinsic to the approach, given that participants retained awareness of both the simulated nature of the experience and the reality being represented. 

Building on these findings, this dissertation (1) revealed the mental models of users, designers, and researchers regarding empathic VR, (2) synthesized these insights into a coherent framework for the effective conceptualization, design, and evaluation of empathic VR research, (3) empirically validated the capacity of empathic VR to foster empathic understanding through an in-group perspective; and (4) uncovered unexpected pedagogical value of empathic VR in Library and Information Science (LIS) training and design thinking education. 

Questions? Contact Xinhui Hu.