Evania Fasya is a PhD candidate at the unit of Cognitive Psychology, Leiden University, and the Human-Media Interaction Department, University Twente. Her research focuses on the perception of virtual human emotional expressions and the influence of social anxiety.

More information about Evania Lina Fasya

Evania Fasya is a PhD candidate at the unit of Cognitive Psychology, Leiden University, and the Human-Media Interaction Department, University Twente. Her research focuses on the perception of virtual human emotional expressions and the influence of social anxiety.

The social evaluations of virtual humans

Artificial agents such as virtual humans can be used in the healthcare domain to train people with fear of social interaction or public speaking in virtual reality. These virtual reality exposure systems are beneficial since people can practice overcoming their fear in a safe and naturalistic environment. However, how do people perceive these virtual agents? Do people like or trust them? How does social anxiety or public speaking anxiety play a role? 

In this PhD project, Fasya conducts several experiments to investigate these questions by focusing on specific components of social interaction, such as eye contact or the mimicry of motor and autonomic expressions. By using listening and speaking tasks, she observes how people evaluate and feel about the virtual humans and whether anxiety plays a role. Questionnaire, facial expression, eye-tracking, and physiological signals such as skin temperature, skin conductance, and heart rate are measured to investigate the research questions.

Short CV

Fasya received her Bachelor and Master of Computer Science degrees from the University of Indonesia and the University of Twente in 2013 and 2017 respectively, majoring in Information Systems and Interaction Technology. Outside academia, she has worked at several software development companies with clients in the financial and telecommunication industry between 2010-2015.

Afterward, she focused more on scientific software development. She has worked on different projects, such as improving the system for digitizing old broadcasting guides at the Beeld & Geluid; developing a question-generation system for the ARIA VALUSPA project, and developing several psychological experiment programs at Leiden University, specializing in a combined setup of eye-tracking, physiological measurements in a virtual environment.

In 2020, she started her PhD project with Dr. Esther van den Bos, Prof. Mariska Kret, and Prof. Dirk Heylen, a collaboration between Leiden University and the University of Twente. She is also involved in the teaching of the Virtual Reality workgroup of the Applied Cognitive Psychology course, Psychology of Digital Design course, and the supervision of bachelor and master theses at Leiden University.