Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Lebenswissen­schaftliche Fakultät - Institut für Psychologie

Stereoscopy is used to enhance depth perception, as in the movie “Avatar” for example. Applied to psychological research stimuli, this technique could evoke more ecological reactions in participants.
Emotion research often makes use of standardized photos depicting actors portraying different facial emotions (anger, happiness, fear, disgust, etc…) However, even though photos are commonly encountered in real life, their ecological validity is restricted to the degree that they are different from the real life 3-D moving expressions we see most of the time. A first step towards more ecological validity was made by researchers using videos of unfolding emotions (e.g., Hess & Blairy, 2001; Sato et al., 2008). Dynamic facial expressions are faster and better recognized, produce more automatic facial mimicry activity, and are judged more realistic than their static counterparts. However one step further would be to create dynamic stereoscopic facial expressions. Stereoscopy is used to enhance depth perception, as in the Hollywood movie “Avatar” for example. I am in the process of developing a stereoscopic emotional picture/video set of facial expressions. Currently I am using very realistic computer generated avatars because they are convenient to use and have been shown to induce reaction patterns similar to real stimuli (e.g., Wyers et al., 2006).