About Me

Dr Angelica B. Ortiz de Gortari is a psychologist, researcher, prolific author and expert speaker with more than 15 years of experience investigating the psychosocial and cognitive impact of interactive technologies, video games and digital media.

Her academic career spans Sweden, the United Kingdom, Norway and Belgium, combining psychological research, clinical practice and applied work with technology, gaming and gambling. Her research interests include interactive media, human–technology interaction, digital wellbeing, behavioural addictions, mental health, cognitive processes and the emerging psychological effects of artificial intelligence.

Angelica’s interest in the psychosocial implications of interactive technologies began during her undergraduate studies, when she conducted one of the early studies examining pathological Internet use in 2000. Her work subsequently evolved towards understanding how interactive technologies can influence perception, cognition and behaviour.

In April 2010, while completing her master’s thesis at Stockholm University, she began investigating what she termed Game Transfer Phenomena (GTP). GTP describes involuntary experiences in which elements of video games carry over into everyday life, including transient sensory, cognitive, perceptual and behavioural experiences. She subsequently developed GTP into a multimodal research approach examining the interplay between individual experiences and the sensory stimulation, simulations, features and mechanics of interactive media.

Her doctoral research at Nottingham Trent University culminated in the 2015 PhD thesis, Exploring Game Transfer Phenomena: A Multimodal Research Approach for Investigating Video Games’ Effects, for which she received a doctoral award for excellence. Her subsequent research on GTP was supported by the European Union and the University of Liège through a Marie Curie COFUND Postdoctoral Research Fellowship.

Over the years, her GTP research has expanded internationally, resulting in a substantial body of empirical research and the development and validation of instruments for assessing GTP across different populations and languages, including English, Spanish, Chinese, Polish, Turkish, Indonesian, Finish and Norwegian. Her work examines how individual differences interact with game features and mechanics to shape involuntary sensory, cognitive and behavioural experiences.

Angelica has published more than 120 academic publications, including over 50 as first author, and has an h-index of 21 and an i10-index of 28. She serves on academic editorial boards, including the Psychopathology section of Frontiers in Psychology and Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking. She has also served as an external PhD examiner and supervisor and currently co-supervises doctoral research on Game Transfer Phenomena at the University of Hertfordshire.

She is a Project Leader and Principal Research Investigator for esportsNS (Esports in Nordic Schools) at the Centre for the Science of Learning & Technology (SLATE), University of Bergen, Norway, where she leads longitudinal research examining esports and young people’s development and wellbeing.

Alongside her academic work, Angelica has developed expertise in clinical psychology and cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and maintains a clinical practice in Monterrey, Mexico. Through Cyberpsyke Consulting, she provides research, consultancy and advisory services to organisations working across video games, gambling, healthcare and education, translating psychological research into practical strategies for responsible technology design, digital wellbeing and harm prevention.

Her professional experience in gaming and gambling also includes work with the Public Health Agency of Sweden, where she worked in the area of pathological gambling and contributed to research and policy development relating to online gambling and video games.

Angelica’s research has received international recognition and has been covered by major media outlets, including the BBC World Service, BBC Click, The New Scientist, Discovery News, The Boston Globe and The Washington Post. Her work has informed policy and emerging-risk discussions, including the UK Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology’s POSTnote and the Lloyds Emerging Risk Report. Her research on Game Transfer Phenomena has also inspired popular media, including an episode of CSI: Cyber and references in science-fiction literature.

She has appeared on television, radio and podcasts since 1999, discussing the psychological and societal implications of the Internet, video games, gaming and emerging technologies. Her media work includes appearances with the BBC World Service, BBC Click, BBC East Midlands and Televisa Monterrey.

More recently, her research has expanded towards the psychological implications of artificial intelligence, including AI-mediated cognition, human–AI relationships, overreliance, dependency, reality appraisal and potential pathways through which conversational AI may influence perception, cognition and behaviour.

Her broader research programme is united by a central question: how do interactive technologies become psychologically incorporated into people’s everyday experiences, and what happens when the boundaries between digital and physical experience begin to blur?

Among her favourite game franchises are Animal Crossing, Mario + Rabbids, Resident Evil, Uncharted, Tetris Effect and The Last of Us.