As a developmental psychologist, I have always been interested in mental processes and cognitive functions. Years of collaboration at the Centre of Genetic Epistemology have shaped a profoundly interdisciplinary approach  to knowledge. Although definitely not a Geek, IT raised interesting questions and novel solutions, which I integrated into my approach.

A new personal twist came quite naturally when in 2009 a colleague of mine asked me to join his group specializing in virtual reality for osteosynthesis.   What has a cognitive psychologist to bring to osteosynthesis?

I realised that my 10 years experience in building serious games for children were exactly what helped us understand the difficulties surgeons faced when learning with 2D material or using 2D x-rays for inherently 3D anatomy.

That was the start of a new challenge: how does the mind translate from 2D to 3D:  what are the mental processes involved in this translation? Can mental rotations be trained? Can we build 3D virtual reality training tools mimicking mental processes?