Anxiety and Presence during VR Immersion: A Comparative Study of the Reactions of Phobic and Non-phobic Participants in Therapeutic Virtual Environments Derived from Computer Games

Abstract

Virtual reality can be used to provide phobic clients with therapeutic exposure to phobogenic stimuli. However, purpose-built therapeutic VR hardware and software can be expensive and difficult to adapt to individual client needs. In this study, inexpensive and readily adaptable PC computer games were used to provide exposure therapy to 13 phobic participants and 13 non-phobic control participants. It was found that anxiety could be induced in phobic participants by exposing them to phobogenic stimuli in therapeutic virtual environments derived from computer games (TVEDG). Assessments were made of the impact of simulator sickness and of sense of presence on the phobogenic effectiveness of TVEDGs. Participants reported low levels of simulator sickness, and the results indicate that simulator sickness had no significant impact on either anxiety or sense of presence. Group differences, correlations, and regression analyses indicate a synergistic relationship between presence and anxiety. These results do not support Slater's contention that presence and emotion are orthogonal.

Auditory-Visual Virtual Reality as a Diagnostic and Therapeutic Tool for Cynophobia

“…Those with the lowest presence scores were also the ones reporting less discomfort when they encountered the first virtual dog (see Figure 4B). These observations confirm the consistency of our measurements, underlying the potential link between emotion and presence (Robillard, Bouchard, Fournier, & Renaud, 2003). The different dogs evoked different reactions (see Table 3), mainly idiosyncratic (Friedman test (10, 3) = 10.06, p = 0.02, Kendall's coefficient of concordance W = .33).…”

Computer game engines for developing first-person virtual environments

“…Virtual environments developed with the Unreal Engine include systems for acrophobia and claustrophobia therapy [RBFR03] …”

“…Building realistic virtual environments is a complex, expensive and time consuming process [Lai02, RBFR03,SD00,SH01]. Lepuras and Vassilakis [LV05] note that state-of-the-art virtual environments are both costly to build and to maintain.…”

“…Using computer games as the basis for virtual environment development has a number of advantages. Computer games are robust and extensively tested [LV05], both for usability and performance, work on off-the-shelf systems [RBFR03] and can be easily disseminated, for example via online communities. Many computer game developers support modification of their game environments by releasing level editors, for example to modify the game environment, and tools to edit the game behaviour.…”

Emotions and the Emotional Valence Afforded by the Virtual Environment

“…Robillard et al (2003) reported a significant correlation (r = .74, < p .001) between anxiety and the feeling of presence. To assess the direction of the relationship between anxiety and presence, Bouchard, St-Jacques, Robillard and Renaud (2008) manipulated anxiety while participants suffering from a phobia of snakes were immersed in virtual reality, then evaluated the impact of anxiety on the feeling of presence.…”