Generative AI in Media Contexts

Focus areas:

• Embodied conversational agents and photorealistic avatars
• Synthetic media in training and health communication
• Calibrated trust, acceptance and explainability
• User-centred evaluation of generative systems
• Ethical questions in the development of AI for education and care

Generative systems — embodied agents, photorealistic avatars, synthetic voice and video — are arriving in training and health communication faster than the methods needed to judge them. We study how people respond to them: whether an avatar increases engagement or unease, when an explanation helps and when it merely reassures, and what makes trust calibrated rather than blind. The work follows the same measurement tradition as the rest of the lab, combining controlled studies, physiological measures and field deployment — because acceptance measured in a laboratory does not survive contact with a clinic or a classroom unchanged.