Bigna Lenggenhager and her team are investigating how immersive technologies and AI can be used to foster self-compassion. A new preprint shows that brief VR-based interventions reduce self-criticism, regardless of how strongly participants identify with their digital version of themselves as a child.
Brandenberger, D., Zybinska, P., Wiesendanger, J., Frund, R. L., Kleim, B., Lenggenhager, B., & Roel Lesur, M. (2026). Ways of comforting: Examining self-recognition and self-identification in self-compassion during dialogues with AI-generated child replicas. PsyArXiv.
https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/tkax5_v1
The project was funded in the second Project Call «The impact of Deepfakes in virtual reality scenarios for mental health therapy». The follow-up project, «Me to the power of two», is funded in the second Founder Call.