A Transdisciplinary Presentation Bridging Psychology and Technology

Virtual reality (VR) has undergone a transition in the past 20 years that has taken it from the realm of expensive toy and into that of functional technology.

The Psychology Department Speaker Series and Media Technology Department are excited to host Albert “Skip” Rizzo, Ph.D. from USC who will provide an overview of the many forms of Virtual Reality that have been applied across a diverse range of clinical conditions and research questions. This will include a brief overview of the use of VR for Exposure Therapy for anxiety disorders and with PTSD in military personnel, followed by a summary of research and clinical applications of VR for pain distraction, cognitive and motor assessment/rehabilitation. The focus will then shift to clinically-oriented work with intelligent Virtual Humans agents that can engage real human users in a credible fashion. This has driven their use as “Virtual Patients” for clinical training of novice healthcare providers, experiential social training with persons on the Autism Spectrum, and as online healthcare support guides.

Albert “Skip” Rizzo, Ph.D. is the Director of Medical Virtual Reality at the Institute for Creative Technologies and Research Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and School of Gerontology at the University of Southern California. Dr. Skip Rizzo conducts research on the design, development and evaluation of virtual reality (VR) systems targeting the areas of clinical assessment, treatment rehabilitation and resilience. This work spans the domains of psychological, cognitive and motor functioning in both healthy and clinical populations.