Kata Szita
Dr
Dr Kata Szita is an assistant professor of Multimedia at the School of Communications and a funded investigator at the Insight SFI Centre for Data Analytics. Her research focuses on extended reality experiences and how they affect human-to-computer and human-to-human interactions: she has published widely about the impacts of virtual environments and the use of avatars or XR-manipulated bodies on cognitive and neural processes, social behaviours, identity, as well as the dilemmas around the prevalence of artificial digital agents and personal data collected in XR spaces. Currently, she leads interdisciplinary and cross-sector research projects on accessible immersive technologies and user experiences in social virtual reality. As a collaborator, among other things, she is involved in studies of the cognitive processing of realism in mixed reality, virtual identities, and virtual youth behaviour.
Dr Szita’s research has been funded by, among others, EC Horizon 2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, Meta Research, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. She has been involved in industry-based research collaborations as a user experience researcher and consultant with Volvo Cars, Sweden and Volograms, Ireland.
Dr Szita is associate editor for PRESENCE: Virtual and Augmented Reality (MIT Press), EDI committee member at Insight Centre, membership director, board member, and EDI committee member of the Society for Cognitive Studies of the Moving Image (SCSMI), and member of INDCOR (Interactive Narrative Design for Complexity Representations) funded by the European Cooperation in Science and Technology Action.
Peer Reviewed Journal
| Year | Publication | |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 | Kata Szita; Brendan Rooney (2024) 'Smartphone spectatorship in unenclosed environments: The physiological impacts of visual and sonic distraction during movie watching on mobile devices'. Entertainment Computing, . [Link] [DOI] | |
| 2024 | Kata Szita; Wyatt Moss-Wellington; Xiaolin Sun; Eugene Ch'ng (2024) 'Going to the movies in VR: Virtual reality cinemas as alternatives to in-person co-viewing'. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, . [Link] [DOI] | |
| 2023 | Pierre Gander; Kata Szita; Andreas Falck; William Hedley Thompson (2023) 'Taking the unreal seriously: Enriching cognitive science with the notion of fictionality'. Frontiers in Psychology, . [Link] [DOI] | |
| 2023 | Pierre Gander; Kata Szita; Andreas Falck; Robert Lowe (2023) 'Memory of Fictional Information: A Theoretical Framework'. Perspectives on Psychological Science, . [Link] [DOI] | |
| 2023 | Kata Szita; Cheng Hung Lo (2023) 'Visual Storytelling and Narrative Experiences in Extended Reality: Guest Editors’ Introduction'. PRESENCE: Virtual and Augmented Reality, . [Link] [DOI] | |
| 2023 | Jennifer O'Meara; Kata Szita (2023) 'AR Cinema: Visual Storytelling and Embodied Experiences with Augmented Reality Filters and Backgrounds'. PRESENCE: Virtual and Augmented Reality, . [Link] [DOI] | |
| 2022 | (2022) 'A virtual safe space? An approach of intersectionality and social identity to behavior in virtual environments'. Journal of Digital Social Research, . [Link] [DOI] | |
| 2021 | Pierre Gander; David Wallstén (2021) 'The effects of cinematic virtual reality on engagement and the recollection of narrative events'. PRESENCE: Virtual and Augmented Reality, . [Link] [DOI] | |
| 2021 | Kata Szita; Brendan Rooney (2021) 'The Effects of Smartphone Spectatorship on Attention, Arousal, Engagement, and Comprehension'. i-Perception, . [Link] [DOI] | |
| 2021 | Pierre Gander (2021) 'Remote and lab-based research of viewing experiences and recollection in cinematic virtual reality'. Proceedings of the 16th SweCog Conference, . [Link] | |
| 2020 | (2020) 'New Perspectives on an Imperfect Cinema: Smartphones, Spectatorship, and Screen Culture 2.0'. NECSUS, . [Link] [DOI] | |
| 2017 | (2017) 'Smartphones, Films, and Cognition'. Proceedings of the 13th SweCog Conference, . | |
| 2015 | (2015) 'Pocket Cinemas: Reinventing Cinematic Experience on Smartphones'. Proceedings of the 5th Mobile Creativity & Mobile Innovation Symposium, . |
Conference Publication
| Year | Publication | |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 | Eugene Kukshinov; Joseph Tu; Kata Szita; Kaushall Senthil Nathan; Lennart E. Nacke (2024) Never The Same: Systematic Analysis of the Methodological Issues in the Presence Studies That Employ Questionnaires [Link] [DOI] | |
| 2024 | Eugene Kukshinov; Daniel Harley; Kata Szita; Reza Hadi Mogavi; Cayley Macarthur; Lennart E. Nacke (2024) Disembodied, Asocial, and Unreal: How Users Reinterpret Designed Affordances of Social VR [Link] [DOI] |
Book Chapter
| Year | Publication | |
|---|---|---|
| Kata Szita 'Phenonarratology and cinematic virtual reality: A phenomenological and analytical approach to embodied viewing and the changing sensory scope (forthcoming)' In: Immersion in Analogue and Digital Environments: Enchantment as a Laboratory for Transdisciplinary Thinking and Practice. [Link] | ||
| 2017 | (2017) 'Haptic Cinema: Smartphones and the Spectator’s Body' In: Body Images in the Post-Cinematic Scenario: The Digitization of Bodies. |
Book
| Year | Publication | |
|---|---|---|
| 2019 | (2019) Smartphone cinematics: A cognitive study of smartphone spectatorship. [Link] |
Other Publication
| Year | Publication | |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | (2020) Review of the book Video games and the mind: Essays on cognition, affect and emotion, by B. Perron & F. Schröter. [DOI] |