My main research interests are in the study of cyberbehavior (human behavior in virtual spaces). My research covers both fundamental aspects of cyberbehavior (including cyberpsychology, virtual communities and social dynamics in virtual spaces, computer-mediated communication, human-machine interactions, virtual anthropology) and health applications of information technologies (telemedicine, particularly in the context of ORL diseases and of maritime telemedicine, eHealth, problematic Internet use, impact of the Internet on health care systems, health games). Our research is extremely multi- and trans-disciplinary, and we use a variety of research models (ranging from role-play communities of immersive virtual worlds to Wikipedia) and tools (experimental psychology, behavioral neuroscience, virtual anthropology, content analysis, mathematical modeling, …).
In addition, I have strong interest in perception in general, particularly auditory system, and in perception-related pathologies (e.g., tinnitus, presbycusis, anorexia), and I am involved in a few clinical studies or clinical trials related to oto-rhino-laryngology. Finally, I am interested by the way people perceive science and medicine through the study of popular culture.
Cyberbehavior:
Immersive behaviors and virtual anthropology. Multimodal aspects of behavior in virtual spaces. Organization of social behavior in virtual spaces. Interaction between virtual world design and behavior. Human-machine interactions and computer-mediated communication. Our approach in the study of cyberbehavior combine biology, psychology, sensory neuroscience and social neuroscience tools and methodologies. We aim to discover the cognitive mechanisms and some of the biological correlates of human behavior in virtual spaces. Our main focuses are on multimodal integration (both between cognition, emotion, and perception, and between the different sensory modalities), and on social dynamics and social interactions in virtual spaces. We are also interested in tele-medicine applications of virtual settings.
Pathologies of Perception:
We still conduct research on different pathologies of perception, among them tinnitus, presbycusis, and anorexia. We combine behavioral, molecular, and pharmacological approaches to try to decipher the biological mechanisms underlying those pathologies, and to develop innovative treatments. Among the current topics of interest, we can name the morphological characteristics and plasticity in auditory structures, and aging of nervous system (with an emphasis on perceptual and cognitive aging, from normal to pathology). See recent papers for more details.
