Biography

Dr. Martin Kocur is an Assistant Professor in the Human Factors and Cognitive Psychology Ph.D. program at the University of Central Florida’s Department of Psychology. He holds a B.A. in Media Informatics and Information Science and an M.Sc. of Media Informatics from the University of Regensburg in Germany. Before coming to the University of Central Florida, he did his PhD in Media Informatics also at University of Regensburg and worked as an Assistant Professor in the Department Digital Media at the University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria in Austria, where he focused on game design and immersive applications. The goal of his research is to better understand how changing the self-perception using virtual avatars can be leveraged to positively influence users’ performance and experience while interacting with immersive virtual worlds. Dr. Kocur’s lab utilizes motion capture technology to create embodied experiences and induce body ownership illusions to study the effects of avatars using different methodological approaches including physical and cognitive tasks, physiological measures such as heart rate and skin temperature, and behavioral outcomes.