Dr. Kata Szita

Dr Kata Szita is an assistant professor of Multimedia at the School of Communications. 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 and adaptive 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.

Research Interests

Dr Szita's research involves the cognitive studies of immersive digital media technologies and she has published widely on user experiences and the cognitive and behavioural processes in terms of virtual, augmented, and mixed reality, virtual reality, and the metaverse. 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. She was an investigator at the Insight Research Ireland Centre for Data Analytics.

Her latest publications in venues like Perspectives on Psychological Science, the International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, Frontiers in Psychology, and the proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems report on empirical and theoretical studies of how users engage with media technologies, such as simulated (virtual reality) social spaces, volumetric video, and smartphones. Szita recently co-edited a special issue on immersive digital media for PRESENCE: Virtual and Augmented Reality (2023). She is a co-editor of a forthcoming book on the moving-image media roots of VR technology and experiences by Palgrave (2026) and co-editor of a special issue on cognition of fictional stimuli for the Imagination, Cognition and Personality journal (2025).

Szita is frequently invited to present her research findings to academic audiences, tech sector representatives, and the general public. Some recent presentations include a Keynote address at the Zip-Scene Conference on Immersive Storytelling (Prague, 2024), invited and conference talks at the Women in Data Science Conference (Dublin, 2024), the ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference (Copenhagen, 2024), Meta Research Summit for Egocentric Perception (Seattle, 2024), and Machine Learning Meet Up (Dublin, 2023).

Teaching Interests

Dr Szita has broad experience in teaching subjects at the juncture of human-computer interaction, media, creative technologies, and cognitive science, including module design and coordination, lecturing, and undergraduate and graduate student supervision and examination. Her teaching experience includes:

Cognitive science
Human-computer interaction
UX/UI, user testing
Cyberpsychology
Extended reality studies
Interactive digital media & communication
Media entrepreneurship
Digital/immersive media/AI ethics

Funding Highlights

The effects of social virtual reality movie spectatorship on engagement and emotional tension in isolation, PI, 01/06/2021 - 31/08/2021
Mental well-being, social behaviour, identity, and prejudices in augmented reality experiences with digitally created or modified human bodies, PI, 10/10/2021 - 09/10/2023
Mapping social behaviour in social VR spaces that simulate metaverse-like environments, Co-investigator, 01/09/2022 - 30/09/2023
A critical approach to psychological effects of custom avatars in social VR, Co-investigator, 01/01/2022 - 31/12/2023
Smartphone cinematics: A cognitive study of smartphone spectatorship, PI, 01/09/2014 - 13/09/2019
The effects of smartphone spectatorship on attention, arousal, engagement, and comprehension, PI, 01/09/2017 - 30/09/2018
Smartphone cinematics: A cognitive study of smartphone spectatorship, PI, 01/06/2019 - 30/09/2019
Entering the Metaverse: Investigating Social Virtual Reality Platforms and Experiences, Co-investigator, 01/04/2022 - 30/04/2026
Extended reality and accessible user experience design, PI, 01/12/2024 - 31/12/2025
HearAI: Real-Time Music Personalization for Hearing-Impaired Listeners with Augmented Reality, Co-investigator, 01/10/2023 - 31/12/2024
Safe space: Social behavior and mental well-being in virtual reality during isolation, PI, 01/09/2021 - 30/09/2023

CV

External Positions

Research Fellow in Computer Science, University College Dublin
01/01/2023 – 31/01/2024
Lecturer in Interactive Digital Media, Trinity College Dublin
01/01/2022 – 30/06/2023
Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Fellow in HCI/XR, Trinity College Dublin
10/10/2021 – 09/10/2023

Academic Qualifications

PhD, University of Gothenburg
01/09/2014 – 13/09/2019
Project: Cognitive Media and Film
Award date: 13/09/2019
Master's Degree, Stockholm University
01/09/2011 – Ongoing
Project: Cognitive Media and Film
Bachelor's Degree, Eötvös Loránd University
01/09/2009 – Ongoing
Project: Social Sciences (Social Psychology)