% IMPORTANT: The following is UTF-8 encoded.  This means that in the presence
% of non-ASCII characters, it will not work with BibTeX 0.99 or older.
% Instead, you should use an up-to-date BibTeX implementation like “bibtex8” or
% “biber”.

@ARTICLE{Georgescu:171981,
      author       = {Georgescu, Alexandra Livia and Kuzmanovic, Bojana and Roth,
                      Daniel and Bente, Gary and Vogeley, Kai},
      title        = {{T}he {U}se of {V}irtual {C}haracters to {A}ssess and
                      {T}rain {N}on-{V}erbal {C}ommunication in
                      {H}igh-{F}unctioning {A}utism},
      journal      = {Frontiers in human neuroscience},
      volume       = {8},
      issn         = {1662-5161},
      address      = {Lausanne},
      publisher    = {Frontiers Research Foundation},
      reportid     = {FZJ-2014-05535},
      pages        = {807},
      year         = {2014},
      abstract     = {High-functioning autism (HFA) is a neurodevelopmental
                      disorder, which is characterized by life-long
                      socio-communicative impairments on the one hand and
                      preserved verbal and general learning and memory abilities
                      on the other. One of the areas where particular difficulties
                      are observable is the understanding of non-verbal
                      communication cues. Thus, investigating the underlying
                      psychological processes and neural mechanisms of non-verbal
                      communication in HFA allows a better understanding of this
                      disorder, and potentially enables the development of more
                      efficient forms of psychotherapy and trainings. However, the
                      research on non-verbal information processing in HFA faces
                      several methodological challenges. The use of virtual
                      characters (VCs) helps to overcome such challenges by
                      enabling an ecologically valid experience of social
                      presence, and by providing an experimental platform that can
                      be systematically and fully controlled. To make this field
                      of research accessible to a broader audience, we elaborate
                      in the first part of the review the validity of using VCs in
                      non-verbal behavior research on HFA, and we review current
                      relevant paradigms and findings from social-cognitive
                      neuroscience. In the second part, we argue for the use of
                      VCs as either agents or avatars in the context of
                      “transformed social interactions.” This allows for the
                      implementation of real-time social interaction in virtual
                      experimental settings, which represents a more sensitive
                      measure of socio-communicative impairments in HFA. Finally,
                      we argue that VCs and environments are a valuable assistive,
                      educational and therapeutic tool for HFA.},
      cin          = {INM-8 / INM-3},
      ddc          = {610},
      cid          = {I:(DE-Juel1)INM-8-20090406 / I:(DE-Juel1)INM-3-20090406},
      pnm          = {472 - Key Technologies and Innovation Processes (POF2-472)
                      / 333 - Pathophysiological Mechanisms of Neurological and
                      Psychiatric Diseases (POF2-333) / 89572 - (Dys-)function and
                      Plasticity (POF2-89572)},
      pid          = {G:(DE-HGF)POF2-472 / G:(DE-HGF)POF2-333 /
                      G:(DE-HGF)POF2-89572},
      typ          = {PUB:(DE-HGF)16},
      UT           = {WOS:000343036300001},
      pubmed       = {pmid:25360098},
      doi          = {10.3389/fnhum.2014.00807},
      url          = {https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/171981},
}