Dr.-Ing. Linda Graf

I am interested in the impact of emotionally expressive virtual characters on users’ emotions. For example, can a virtual character provide emotional support and help me during stressful moments? Or can a virtual character convey believable emotions to represent me in a social virtual interaction? My research focuses on the believability and appropriateness of those emotional virtual characters in VR applications in both human-agent and mediated human-human interaction.

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Dissertation: Virtual Encounter, Real Emotions: On the Influence of Emotional Virtual Characters on Human Experience 

Dr.-Ing. Linda Graf

Informatik / HCCS

Address
Forsthausweg 2 (LE)
47057 Duisburg
Room
LE 331
Phone
+49 203 379 1653
Fax
+49 203 379 4476
E-Mail
linda.graf@uni-due.de

Functions

  • Wissenschaftliche/r Mitarbeiter/in, Medieninformatik

The following publications are listed in the online university bibliography of the University of Duisburg-Essen. Further information may also be found on the person's personal web pages.

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Tendered Theses

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Theses in Progress

Type Topic Author
     

 

 

 

Supervised Theses

Type Topic Author Finished
Master's Thesis Virtual Reality in the Intensive Care Unit: Potential Applications and the Role of Social VR for Creating Shared Experiences to Promote Well-Being Cindy-Virginia Enekwemchi 2025
Master's Thesis

tba

 Sophia Prehn 2025
Master's Thesis Enhancing Virtual Agent Interaction: A Comparative Study of Pre-Recorded Audio vs. ChatGPT-Enhanced Dialogue Systems Philip Frese 2024
Master's Thesis Virtual Encounters, Real Emotions: Designing VR Experiences for Incarcerated Parents and Their Children Leslie Scholemann 2024
Master's Thesis The Impact of Emotional Expression and Social Touch on the Empathetic Response Towards Virtual Characters Melina Baßfeld 2024
Master's Thesis Enhancing Clinical Empathy Through Embodiment in Virtual Reality Anne Smets 2024
Master's Thesis Development of a Speech Recognition System for Teaching Clinical Skills in Diagnosing Mental Disorders Yustinus Aquila Adrian 2023
Bachelor's Thesis Personality Customization in Avatars: Evaluating the Needs and Preference of Social VR Users to Express Their Virtual Personality Dana Schulte 2023
Master's Thesis The Influence of Mood-congruent Virtual Agents on the Social Connectedness and the Player Experience in a Cooperative VR Game Gian Luca Dossena 2023
Bachelor's Thesis Sweet but Creepy? An Investigation of the Impact of Appearance and Behaviour of Virtual Agents on Likeability and Social Acceptance Anastasia Chernetskaya 2023
Bachelor's Thesis Investigating Different Appearances of Virtual Characters for Teaching Clinical Skills in Diagnosing Mental Disorders Tobias Windheuser 2022
Bachelor's Thesis Investigation of Emotional Expressions of Virtual Characters for the Teaching of Clinical Skills in Diagnosing Mental Disorders Vera Golz 2022
Master's Thesis Investigating the Influence of Different Types of Social Support provided by Virtual Companions on the User's Emotions Laura Menze 2022
Bachelor's Thesis Extension of a Training Game to Improve Executive Functions in Children with ADHD by Adding a Motivation and a Level Component Julian Stülp 2021
Bachelor's Thesis The Impact of Eye Contact with Virtual Companions on Social Presence and Social Connectedness Timo Fürtges 2021
Bachelor's Thesis Eye-Gaze Interaction as Game Control? Directing attention of children with ADHD in Virtual Reality Leslie Scholemann 2021
Bachelor's Thesis Development of a training game to train interference control in children with ADHD Marcel Morillo 2021
Bachelor's Thesis Investigation and cataloging of emotion causing game elements Marius Grießhammer 2020
Bachelor's Thesis Acquisition and analysis of eye tracking data for concentration enhancing games Jacky James Chi Quan 2020

 

Academic Career and Education

2019 - 2026 PhD at the Entertainment Computing Group (Faculty of Computer Science): Virtual Encounter, Real Emotions: On the Influence of Emotional Virtual Characters on Human Experience
2017 - 2019 Study of Applied Cognitive- and Media Science at the University of Duisburg-Essen, degree Master of Science (M.Sc.)
2013 - 2017 Study of Applied Cognitive- and Media Science at the University of Duisburg-Essen, degree Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.)

 

Professional Career

09/2019 - today Researcher at the Entertainment Computing Group
05/2019 - 08/2019 Research Assistant at Higgins Lab, Columbia University, New York, USA
10/2015 - 04/2019 Student assistant at the Entertainment Computing Group
10/2014 - 02/2019 Student assistant at the Department of Psychological Research Methods and Media based knowledge constructions