Postdoctoral position (M/F) - Cognitive assessment of distanced immersion: mechanisms of historical understanding in memorial mixed reality

Job Description

Missions

-This postdoctoral position is part of the ANR project ITS-STORY (*Interactive Storytelling supporting augmented memory in internment camps, Nazi Europe*), led by the Heudiasyc laboratory (UTC-CNRS) in partnership with the Memorial of Internment and Deportation of Compiègne (Royallieu Camp). The project develops in situ mixed-reality experiences, deployed on the Meta Quest 3 headset, aimed at producing a contextualized historical understanding of life in the camp, following a regime of **distanced immersion**: the visitor is present within the scene without merging with the internees.

The project has formalized a parametric *design space* structured along five design dimensions — perceptual, narrative, semiotic, interactional, epistemic — whose parameters (visual identity, focalization, dramatic intensity, level of explicitness, metaphor, diegetic status, etc.) produce differentiated effects on understanding. A grid of pedagogical objectives has been developed for each combination of historical message and experiential regime, following a hybrid taxonomic framework articulating cognitive and affective levels. Our framework explicitly distinguishes perspective-taking, distanced affective connection, motivation (the development of interests in and values toward the subject, with a motivational aim), and embodied understanding, and it sets as a central concern the distinction between **understanding** and **identification**. This framework constitutes the scientific basis from which the postdoctoral work will proceed.

This postdoctoral position aims to study the **cognitive and affective mechanisms** through which different forms of immersive mediation produce, or fail to produce, a deep and distanced historical understanding. The central challenge is to understand how certain configurations of the design space support an active construction of understanding — hypothesis formulation, search for cues, establishment of causal relations, attribution of intentions to actors of the past — while preserving the critical distance that distinguishes understanding from identification.

Cognitive curiosity is one of the drivers of this construction, but not the only one: the postdoctoral work situates it within a broader set of mechanisms — inference, causal reconstruction, theory of mind applied to historical situations, perspective-taking, and distanced affective and bodily resonance.

Particular attention will be paid to two dimensions that the ITS-STORY taxonomic framework identifies as central but that require in-depth experimental investigation: the **Human Dimension** (understanding the perspective of internees within their context without confusing it with one's own experience) and **embodied understanding** (spontaneous bodily resonance maintained within critical distanciation). These two dimensions constitute forms of historical understanding that go beyond verbalization and require specific observation methods.

The postdoctoral work will pursue three complementary objectives:

- Contribute to the theoretical formalization of the cognitive and affective mechanisms involved in distanced historical understanding within immersive environments — inference, causal reconstruction, theory of mind, perspective-taking, affective connection, embodied understanding, the understanding/identification distinction — in articulation with the existing ITS-STORY taxonomic framework.
- Design and conduct experimental protocols enabling the testing of the hypotheses defined within the project (effects of regimes and parameters, dosage of affect, understanding/identification distinction), drawing on the naturalistic experimental setups already developed or under development. These studies compare versions of scenarios differing by a single design-space parameter, which guarantees the causal attribution of the observed effects.
- Analyze the behavioral data collected in situ (positions and trajectories within the virtual environment; in complementary laboratory studies: eye-tracking, body and facial tracking) in articulation with post-experience verbalizations coded according to the taxonomic grid, in order to identify regularities between design-space configurations, exploration strategies, and the quality of historical understanding.

Activity

The postdoctoral researcher will be in charge of the following activities:

- contribute to the formalization of the theoretical framework linking cognitive mechanisms, affective registers, and distanced historical understanding, in coherence with the ITS-STORY pedagogical design dossier;
- participate in the operational definition of the cognitive and affective dependent variables, and in the construction of the coding grids for verbalizations and behaviors (Bloom, Fink, embodied understanding, markers of identification and presentism);
- design and conduct the experimental protocols of the studies in connection with the Memorial of Compiègne and the consortium partners;
- analyze the behavioral traces and verbal data using suitable methods (regression, clustering analysis, Bayesian models);
- contribute to the identification of relations between mediation parameters, exploration dynamics, and differentiated cognitive and affective effects, with a view to producing guidelines for designers and mediators;
- write international scientific articles and take part in the project's coordination meetings.

The codings produced by this postdoctoral work also constitute the labeling basis on which the profile-identification and adaptation work conducted downstream of the project will rely.

Your Profil

Skills

The position is intended for a person holding a doctorate in human-machine interaction, cognitive science, cognitive psychology, or a related discipline with a strong experimental component. Experience in at least one of the following areas will be particularly appreciated: cognition in immersive or XR environments; reasoning, inference, or historical empathy; narrative or historical understanding; analysis of behavioral traces or behavioral metrics in VR.

Mastery of experimental methodology (between-subjects design, multiple dependent variables, control of biases). Experience in designing and conducting studies with participants. Skills in quantitative data analysis (R or Python) and familiarity with methods for analyzing behavioral traces. Ability to work in an interdisciplinary environment (computer science, history, cognitive science, cultural mediation). Good writing skills in scientific English.

Familiarity with VR/MR environments, human learning, or historical empathy frameworks will be an asset.

Your Work Environment

The postdoctoral position is part of a multidisciplinary consortium bringing together Heudiasyc (UTC-CNRS), Borelli (UPC), COSTECH (UTC), CHS (Paris 1), the Royallieu Memorial, and Excurio/Emissive. It will be articulated with a research engineer in computer science responsible for the computational formalization of the design space, the PhD student in psycho-ergonomics responsible for usage and usability measures, the postdoc in Information and Communication Sciences (SIC) responsible for the narrative grammar, and the postdoc dedicated to the distanced narration engine. The postdoctoral position in cognitive science constitutes the intermediate layer between the design of the device and its cognitive assessment: it experimentally tests the hypotheses produced by the design dossier, and its results feed into the guidelines and, ultimately, the adaptation work.

Constraints and risks

None

Compensation and benefits

Compensation

€3,043.58 gross

Annual leave and RTT

44 jours

Remote Working practice and compensation

Pratique et indemnisation du TT

Transport

Prise en charge à 75% du coût et forfait mobilité durable jusqu’à 300€

About the offer

About the CNRS

The CNRS is a major player in fundamental research on a global scale. The CNRS is the only French organization active in all scientific fields. Its unique position as a multi-specialist allows it to bring together different disciplines to address the most important challenges of the contemporary world, in connection with the actors of change.

CNRS

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