Emotional biometrics, virtual reality, big data and fear of crime

On July 20th, the CEO of Plus Ethics, Francisco Javier Castro Toledo, defended his doctoral thesis entitled “Fear of crime in the technological era: new methodological horizons, new ontological scope” and supervised by the CRIMINA’s director Prof. Dr. Fernando Miró Llinares.

According to the author of the doctoral thesis:

After more than half a century, criminological research has shown a growing interest in analyzing the fear of crime. From its definition to the profiling of its dimensions, through the detection of associated phenomena or the establishment of the most appropriate methodologies for its measurement, what is really the fear of crime has resisted any attempt to reduce, conceptualize or operationalize a broad consensus , which has resulted in his. current lack of definition, the enormous difficulty for its scientific measurement and polyhedral nature. From the consideration of this triple characterization, this doctoral thesis analyzes how the crisis of the fear of crime, as a criminological construct, is not so much an ontological crisis as a methodological crisis with an ontological scope. Therefore, compared to traditional research strategies focused on self-reported measures, nowadays, there are excellent opportunities to improve our understanding of the nature of this phenomenon in light of the methodologies of approaching the emotional technologies offered by new technologies. For this reason, this doctoral thesis presents four empirical studies based on the collection of emotional indicators in real time that show the enormous utility of research into the fear of crime, emotional biometrics in UX research models, the simulation of experiences of victimization and cybervictimization through virtual reality or the analysis of emotional content in online social networks through Big Data techniques.

Also, this doctoral thesis was attended by a tribunal composed of Prof. Dr. Marcelo Aebi (University of Lausanne), Dr. César San Juan (University of the Basque Country), Dr. Anabel Cerezo (University of Malaga) , Dr. Alfonso Serrano (UNED) and Dr. Esther Fernandez Molina (Castilla-La Mancha University).