{"id":692,"date":"2018-11-28T19:18:31","date_gmt":"2018-11-29T00:18:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/engaging-learning-lab\/?page_id=692"},"modified":"2026-01-29T09:22:47","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T14:22:47","slug":"vr-empathy","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/engaging-learning-lab\/vr-empathy\/","title":{"rendered":"VR Game for empathy development in young children"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-9d6595d7 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\" style=\"flex-basis:33.33%\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-medium\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"280\" src=\"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/engaging-learning-lab\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/737\/2018\/11\/babaLogo-e1543629588947-300x280.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-942\" srcset=\"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/engaging-learning-lab\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/737\/2018\/11\/babaLogo-e1543629588947-300x280.png 300w, https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/engaging-learning-lab\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/737\/2018\/11\/babaLogo-e1543629588947-768x717.png 768w, https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/engaging-learning-lab\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/737\/2018\/11\/babaLogo-e1543629588947.png 929w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\" style=\"flex-basis:66.66%\">\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Researchers<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/engaging-learning-lab\/ekaterina-muravevskaia\/\">Ekaterina Muravevskaia<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/engaging-learning-lab\/christina-gardner-mccune\/\">Dr. Christina Gardner-McCune<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">VR Game for empathy development in young children<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>The Virtual Reality (VR) educational game \u201cWhy Did Baba Yaga Take My Brother?\u201d aims to support empathy development and understanding of social interactions in young children. The game brings a player to the world of a Russian fairy tale \u201cThe Magic Swan Geese\u201d and encourages them to reflect on characters\u2019 emotions through dialog with characters, watching character\u2019s memories and perspectives. Use of VR for children\u2019s games allows designers to create realistic immersive experience, which can help a player to experience stronger empathetic response. Innovative This VR Empathy Game creates a safe exploratory world of immersive and realistic empathy experiences for young children. The game is designed for children of 5 to 8 years old as a potential extra curriculum activity at school or at home.<br>Here is the video about the game: https:\/\/youtu.be\/c6gMdx9zDFA<br>Here is the link to website of the game: students: https:\/\/babayagavrgame.wordpress.com\/<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Team<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>This game made collaboratively with 15 graduate students from Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy, UCF within the class \u201cGameLab\u201d taught by Dr. Tom Carbone.<br>Producers: Ekaterina Muravevskaia (Subject Matter Expert, Research, Creative Director), Brandon Kidwell (Project Lead, Level Designer), Lukas Nicola (Game Designer, Writer), Brian Foye (Project Manager), Ryan Stanley: Technical Designer.<br>Programmers: Nishanth Sundharesan (Lead Programmer, Tools), Aissa Ben Zayed (Gameplay, Tools Programmer), Krishna Yeragudipati (Systems Programmer).<br>Artists: Kay Ghering (Lead Artist, Technical Artist), Bailey Steggerda (Technical, UI Artist), Michael Vogel (Character Artist, Animator), Paul Salas (Character Artist, Animator), Ryan Hill (Character Artist, Animator), Tiffany Brodie (Environmental Artist), Melissa Almirall (Animator, Illustrator), Will Perez-Valines (Animator).<br>Research team: Fatemeh Tavassoli, Gabriel Coleman, Amanpreet Kapoor, Yerika Jimenez, Joseph Issac. Jr., Alex Lee, Shishin<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Publications<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Peer-Reviewed Conference Papers\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Muravevskaia, E. (2017, October). Empathy Development in Young Children Using Interactive VR Games. In\u00a0<em>Extended Abstracts Publication of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play<\/em>\u00a0(pp. 715-718). ACM.\u00a0Link to ACM library:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/dl.acm.org\/citation.cfm?id=3133229\">https:\/\/dl.acm.org\/citation.cfm?id=3133229<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Muravevskaia, E., Tavassoli, F., &amp; Gardner-McCune, C. (2016, June). Developing children\u2019s cultural awareness and empathy through games and fairy tales. In\u00a0<em>Proceedings of the The 15th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children<\/em>\u00a0(pp. 701-706). ACM.\u00a0Link to ACM library:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/dl.acm.org\/citation.cfm?id=2935998\">https:\/\/dl.acm.org\/citation.cfm?id=2935998<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Peer-Reviewed Conference Posters and Abstracts<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Muravevskaia, C. Gardner-McCune (2017). Educational Virtual Reality Game for Promoting Empathy in Young Children. Proceedings of the 11th European Conference of Games Based Learning. Graz, Austria.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Muravevskaia (2017). Interactive Games for Promoting Empathy in Young Children. 16th Interactive Design and Children (IDC) Conference (abstract)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers VR Game for empathy development in young children The Virtual Reality (VR) educational game \u201cWhy Did Baba Yaga Take My Brother?\u201d aims to support empathy development and understanding of social interactions in young children. The game brings a player to the world of a Russian fairy tale \u201cThe Magic Swan Geese\u201d and encourages them [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":468,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-templates\/page-sidebar-none.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"featured_post":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"class_list":["post-692","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/engaging-learning-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/engaging-learning-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/engaging-learning-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/engaging-learning-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/468"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/engaging-learning-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=692"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/engaging-learning-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/692\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2363,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/engaging-learning-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/692\/revisions\/2363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.eng.ufl.edu\/engaging-learning-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}