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Avatar therapy

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Avatar therapy

Therapeutic interaction mediated by a virtual character. It is the clinical intervention inside which the Speech Gap sub-study would sit, and one of the ecosystem’s recurring technical threads.

In the funded trial

The NKFIH ADVANCED_25 project Adaptation of Avatar Therapy to Borderline Personality Disorder: Virtual Schema Mode Therapy (VSMT), led by Zsolt Unoka, applies avatar-mediated therapy to BPD through a schema-therapy frame. His workshop talk is titled “Avatars in schematherapies.” → Semmelweis / VIKOTE

The wider Semmelweis context

The Virtual Reality and Emotion Research Group (lead: Lajos Simon) researches VR-based mentalisation training, avatar therapy for persistent auditory hallucinations, speech-based analysis, and movement and gesture analysis — projects 2020-2.1.1-ED-2024-00291 and PD 146384, trial contact Edit Vass.

The NIPG technical thread

Avatars recur through NIPG’s own work, independently of the clinical trial:

  • Ambient-intelligence rehabilitation (AIRS) — 3D reconstruction, navigation, body-matched avatars, movement analysis and AI-assisted feedback in physical rehabilitation (DOI). Safeguard: this demonstrates interactive and avatar-feedback capability; it does not establish psychiatric treatment efficacy.
  • Educational games with avatar feedback — the 2013 NIPS workshop work. → Adaptive assessment and serious games
  • The Richter / Colleyeder concept — an avatar-guided game environment for predominantly negative-symptom schizophrenia, 2013, historical. → Supporting collaborations

The forward research question

The avatar and human–AI interaction perspective asks how self-, partner-, and group-models may enable more adaptive, predictable, and clinically useful AI systems.

Two long-term goals are stated as research objectives, not expected clinical benefits: an adaptive avatar that responds to observed interaction patterns, and exploratory prediction of poor therapeutic fit or possible early discontinuation, so clinicians can consider timely adaptation or an alternative therapy. The probability of achieving either cannot yet be estimated. → Perceived personality

Why the historical work matters again

Advances in avatar technology, studies reporting benefits of patient–avatar interactions, and the ongoing avatar studies at a Semmelweis clinic have renewed the relevance of the earlier Richter/Colleyeder initiative.

Zsolt Unoka · Semmelweis / VIKOTE · Borderline personality disorder · Perceived personality · Adaptive assessment and serious games · Supporting collaborations

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