What is it like to perceive a virtual object through the sensed presence of a virtual body? How do subject-object relations occur and can be actualized in virtual environments? Zeynep Akbal explores the impact of virtual reality (VR) technology on the subjective experience of the body and situates the results in context with existing theories in media sciences and the phenomenology of bodily perception. This study presents VR technology as a tool that can be used to more closely examine and study the fundamental intersections of the humanities and the natural sciences that explore the nature of perception.

Zeynep Akbal, born in 1986, works as a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Neurosciences in Leipzig. She studied communication sciences, media sciences and media philosophy, and worked on developing her interdisciplinary method. She did her doctorate in philosophy at Universität Potsdam. Her research focuses on the intersection of philosophy of perception and cognitive sciences.