Dr Věra Suchomelová participated at Masaryk Distinguished Chair Scholarship Program

Thanks to the to the Masaryk Distinguished Chair scholarship programme Dr Věra Suchomelová spent 2 weeks (9th - 24th February 2020) at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC), Herzliya, Israel. Her research-study stay focused on the use of virtual reality at work with elderly people, at the Advanced Reality Laboratory (ARL). 

"I was amazed with the wide range of topics the laboratory team deals with. From exploring the possibilities and limits of the virtual reality in the treatment of mental health problems or correcting stereotypes in social relationships, to using the virtual reality to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as well as the 'Holocaust Virtual Survivors' project.

"I believe that so called body tracking could be interesting for our students as it enables us to spend at least a moment in the skin of a different person - another ethnicity, religion, gender and age.

"I was able to get to know some other applications which are used abroad and I was horrified. We talked about activities such as a South Korean project in which a mother could meet and communicate with her deceased little daughter (live on television with high view ratings). I was even more frightened by the virtual 'escorting of the dying'. An elderly man dies alone in the room. After wearing VR goggles, he sees the same room differently: three smiling people sit around the bed, speaking to him in a quiet, soothing voice, assuring him that he has lived a good life and that it will be good now."