Awedyssey: Design Tensions in Eliciting Self-transcendent Emotions in Virtual Reality to Support Mental Well-being and Connection. Miller, N., Stepanova, E. R., Desnoyers-Stewart, J., Adhikari, A., Kitson, A., Pennefather, P., Quesnel, D., Brauns, K., Friedl-Werner, A., Stahn, A., & Riecke, B. E. In Proceedings of the 2023 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference, of DIS '23, pages 189–211, New York, NY, USA, July, 2023. Association for Computing Machinery. ![Awedyssey: Design Tensions in Eliciting Self-transcendent Emotions in Virtual Reality to Support Mental Well-being and Connection [link]](https://bibbase.org/img/filetypes/link.svg "link")
Paper doi abstract bibtex Access to nature and feeling connection is critical for mental health and well-being. These benefits may be mediated by self-transcendent emotions evoked by nature. We need to explore the capacity of technology to offer such experiences when we lack access to the restorative power of nature. Despite growing research validating this capacity, there is a lack of articulated design knowledge of how such experiences can be created. Here, we explore a technologically-mediated support for mental well-being through an agile design approach informed by self-transcendent emotion theory and transformative experience design. We developed Awedyssey as a sensory deprivation countermeasure experience in virtual reality (VR) and as a part of a public exhibition. We gathered qualitative feedback through interviews, diaries, and surveys. From this data we identified design tensions for designing complex emotional experiences when considering the diversity of individuals and dual effects of designing for realism, autonomy, vastness, and comfort.
@inproceedings{miller_awedyssey_2023,
address = {New York, NY, USA},
series = {{DIS} '23},
title = {Awedyssey: {Design} {Tensions} in {Eliciting} {Self}-transcendent {Emotions} in {Virtual} {Reality} to {Support} {Mental} {Well}-being and {Connection}},
isbn = {978-1-4503-9893-0},
shorttitle = {Awedyssey},
url = {https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3563657.3595998},
doi = {10.1145/3563657.3595998},
abstract = {Access to nature and feeling connection is critical for mental health and well-being. These benefits may be mediated by self-transcendent emotions evoked by nature. We need to explore the capacity of technology to offer such experiences when we lack access to the restorative power of nature. Despite growing research validating this capacity, there is a lack of articulated design knowledge of how such experiences can be created. Here, we explore a technologically-mediated support for mental well-being through an agile design approach informed by self-transcendent emotion theory and transformative experience design. We developed Awedyssey as a sensory deprivation countermeasure experience in virtual reality (VR) and as a part of a public exhibition. We gathered qualitative feedback through interviews, diaries, and surveys. From this data we identified design tensions for designing complex emotional experiences when considering the diversity of individuals and dual effects of designing for realism, autonomy, vastness, and comfort.},
urldate = {2025-06-18},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2023 {ACM} {Designing} {Interactive} {Systems} {Conference}},
publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
author = {Miller, Noah and Stepanova, Ekaterina R. and Desnoyers-Stewart, John and Adhikari, Ashu and Kitson, Alexandra and Pennefather, Patrick and Quesnel, Denise and Brauns, Katharina and Friedl-Werner, Anika and Stahn, Alexander and Riecke, Bernhard E.},
month = jul,
year = {2023},
pages = {189--211},
}
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