Mary Martin

The brain evaluates the images it is processing against a “reality threshold.” If the signal passes the threshold, the brain thinks it’s real; if it doesn’t, the brain thinks it’s imagined.

If you’re told that you must listen to your momentary and subjective feelings of annoyance and hurt, and view them as your truth, minor interpersonal discomforts are much harder to let go of gracefully. If you’re then told that your troubles with relationships stem from your parents’ failure to be fully present and meet your needs in childhood, the... See more

Comparing VR to non-VR breathing interventions, there were no significant differences in overall mental health, stress, anxiety or mood, nor in HR or HRV. There was no evidence that participants liked VR breathing interventions more than non-VR, nor would use them more in the future. These results suggest that there is no evidence that VR breathing... See more

If an AI companion becomes someone’s most consistent emotional presence, the right question isn’t “how do we stop this?” It’s “what does that say about the world around them?” Technological relationships are not new. What’s new is how effective they’ve become; and how clearly they mirror the gaps we’ve refused to address.

We’ve tried prohibition... See more

The results showed that people with a higher desire to so-cially connect were more likely to anthropomorphize the chatbot, ascribing humanlike mental properties to it; and people who anthropomorphized the chatbot more were also more likely to report that it had an impact on their social interactions and relationships with family and friends.