Cloud Based Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy Service for Public Speaking Anxiety

Abstract

Public speaking anxiety is commonly treated using cognitive behavioral therapy. During the therapy session, the patient is either asked to vividly imagine and describe the feared stimulus or is confronted with it in the real world. Sometimes, however, it can be hard to imagine the object of fear or to create a controllable environment that contains this stimulus. Virtual reality exposure therapy (VRET) can help solve these problems by placing the patient in a simulated 3D environment. While standalone VRET applications have been investigated for more than 25 years, we are analyzing the viability of a cloud-based VRET system. In this paper, we discuss the architectural and technical choices made in order to create a mobile and lightweight solution that can be easily adapted by any psychology clinic. Moreover, we are analyzing data gathered from 30 participants who have undergone a VRET session for public speaking anxiety. Finally, the collected psychophysiological signals including galvanic skin response (GSR) and skin temperature are processed and investigated in order to evaluate our cloud-based VRET system.

The Symbiosis of Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy and Telemental Health: A Review

“…Numerous case studies and design reports have described user-centered development processes for self-led VRET (North et al, 1997;Hartanto et al, 2016;Bălan et al, 2020). Others have reported on remote VRET user interfaces codesigned with mental health providers and patients (Brinkman et al, 2010;Kornarakis, 2017;Salkevicius and Navickas, 2018;Šalkevičius et al, 2019). Efforts to scale remote VRET have also been published on a remote VRET platform for one provider to treat multiple patients, and a system for automated tailoring of VRET exercises (Paping et al, 2010;Heyse et al, 2018).…”

Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy for Treating Social Anxiety: A Scoping Review of Treatment Designs and Adaptation to Stuttering

“…Third, several studies investigating VRET for social anxiety were not included in the review as they were outside of the scoping criteria. Some of these expand on innovative techniques such as cloud-based VRET (113), or broaden our understanding of VRET effectiveness by using functional magnetic resonance imaging (114), yet the cumulative effects of such protocols are still unknown due to their recency. Finally, this review focused on adults due to differences in developmental trajectories of social anxiety as well as limited availability of protocols for children and adolescents.…”

INDUSTRY 4.0: A Comprehensive Review of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Big Data and IoT in Psychiatric Health Care

“…Cognitive-behavioral therapy is the largely the common cure for public speaking anxiety disorder. Justas and Audrone et al describe the architectural and technical decisions formed to design a mobile and cloud-based lightweight system that possibly gets adopted by any psychology clinical center [ 6 ]. Furthermore, data gathered from 30 participants are further analyzed taken from those gone through a VRET session for the treatment.…”