EVAS Research Project
Project Objectives
The rapid development of virtual reality (VR) and artificial intelligence (AI) is on the verge of revolutionizing the field of mental and sexual health. It is now essential to consider the applications of VR in sexology, both for advancing knowledge about factors associated with sexual distress and for developing innovative practices to promote sexual well-being.
Sexual aversion (SA) is characterized by the intentional avoidance of sexual situations and interactions experienced as sources of anxiety or disgust. Led by the EROSS Laboratory, this research specifically aims to assess the ability of synthetic sexual stimuli presented in VR to provoke emotional responses characteristic of SA in individuals with aversion.
To achieve this, the emotional responses (anxiety and disgust) of women living with SA will be compared to those of non-aversive women when exposed to synthetic sexual stimuli in VR.
A second objective will be to compare the feeling of presence of participants (with SA vs. without SA) in the context of sexual virtual immersion.
Project Evolution
Principal Researcher: David Lafortune-Sgambato, Ph.D.
Co-researchers: Marie-Aude Boislard, Ph.D., Natacha Godbout, Ph.D.
Funding: This project receives financial support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Knowledge Mobilization) for the development and evaluation phases and from Fonds de recherche société et culture du Québec (Soutien à la recherche pour la relève professorale) for the processing phase.
