Somatic Avatars: AT_REACH Research in Addiction Recovery
Overview
ROLE: Principal Investigator
This pilot study introduces somatic avatar (SA) training as a brief interoceptive intervention combining emotion-focused yoga with the creation and animation of personalized 3D avatars that visually encode participants’ bodily and emotional states. Participants design avatars to represent their felt experience during yoga, which are then animated using their recorded movements; viewing these avatars operationalizes theories of embodied cognition, vicarious learning, and the Proteus Effect by enabling distanced self-observation and rehearsal of somatic-emotional states.
The process is theorized to strengthen distress tolerance by enhancing interoceptive awareness and linking physical sensation with emotional meaning, particularly through repeated recall and re-embodiment during avatar viewing.
Results show that SA significantly improved overall distress tolerance compared to an education control (F(1,18)=6.87, p=0.017), with notable gains in absorption and appraisal of distress, and exploratory findings suggest avatar embodiment as a key mechanism.
Effects were stronger among participants with lower alexithymia, indicating that the intervention may depend on baseline capacity for emotional identification and imaginative projection.
Somatic Avatars research supported by a grant from the Rural Drug Addiction Research Center at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Principal Investigators: Anna Henson (Assistant Professor in the Johnny Carson Center for Emerging Media Arts) and Dr. Dennis McChargue (Professor of Clinical Psychology)
Documentary Videos
