Conference on Designing Interactive Systems
July 10, 2023
Noah Miller, Ekaterina R. Stepanova, John Desnoyers-Stewart et al.
Access to nature and feeling connection is critical for mental health and well-being. These benefits may be mediated by self-transcendent emotions evoked by nature. We need to explore the capacity of technology to offer such experiences when we lack access to the restorative power of nature. Despite growing research validating this capacity, there is a lack of articulated design knowledge of...
Virtual Creativity
June 1, 2022
Noah Miller, John Desnoyers-Stewart, Ekaterina R. Stepanova et al.
2 citations
Self-transcendent experiences are often an integral component of ancient cultural practices that use psychedelic substances during spiritual ceremonies, such as ayahuasca ceremonies. Yet, ayahuasca contains dimethyltryptamine (DMT), which is illegal in many countries. Due to its illegality, ayahuasca experiences are scarce despite potential benefits of increased quality of life and reduced...
International Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
April 27, 2022
Pinyao Liu, Ekaterina R. Stepanova, Alexandra Kitson et al.
Flying dreams have the potential to evoke a feeling of empowerment (or self-efficacy, confidence in our ability to succeed) and self-transcendent experience (STE), which have been shown to contribute to an individual’s overall well-being. However, these exceptional dreaming experiences remain difficult to induce at will. Inspired by the potential of Virtual Reality (VR) to support profound...
Frontiers in Digital Humanities
May 22, 2019
Ekaterina R. Stepanova, Denise T. Quesnel, Bernhard E. Riecke
57 citations
Immersive technology, such as virtual reality, provides us with novel opportunities to create and explore affective experiences with a transformative potential mediated through awe. The profound emotion of awe, that is experienced in response to witnessing vastness and creates the need for accommodation that can lead to restructuring of one's worldview and an increased feeling of connectedness....