Moving from Virtual Reality Exposure-Based Therapy to Augmented Reality Exposure-Based Therapy: A Review

Abstract

This paper reviews the move from virtual reality exposure-based therapy to augmented reality exposure-based therapy (ARET). Unlike virtual reality (VR), which entails a complete virtual environment (VE), augmented reality (AR) limits itself to producing certain virtual elements to then merge them into the view of the physical world. Although, the general public may only have become aware of AR in the last few years, AR type applications have been around since beginning of the twentieth century. Since, then, technological developments have enabled an ever increasing level of seamless integration of virtual and physical elements into one view. Like VR, AR allows the exposure to stimuli which, due to various reasons, may not be suitable for real-life scenarios. As such, AR has proven itself to be a medium through which individuals suffering from specific phobia can be exposed “safely” to the object(s) of their fear, without the costs associated with programing complete VEs. Thus, ARET can offer an efficacious alternative to some less advantageous exposure-based therapies. Above and beyond presenting what has been accomplished in ARET, this paper covers some less well-known aspects of the history of AR, raises some ARET related issues, and proposes potential avenues to be followed. These include the type of measures to be used to qualify the user’s experience in an augmented reality environment, the exclusion of certain AR-type functionalities from the definition of AR, as well as the potential use of ARET to treat non-small animal phobias, such as social phobia.

Internet-based treatment of depression

“…This also holds for an even more recent development, that is, augmented reality (AR), that blends seamlessly virtual and real life components for example in the treatment of arachnophobia. Both VR and AR extend the array of exposure based formats between and interceptive and vivo exposure [48]. One advantage of AR over VR that it is cheaper and still more easy to implement in routine practice.…”

The feasibility of an augment reality system to study the psychophysiological correlates of fear‐related responses

“…Both VR and AR systems allow high levels of immersion (Pausch et al., 1997), compared to other available solutions, such as Multimedia presentation which remove the sense of presence of a real world (Baus & Bouchard, 2014). AR superimposes synthetic computer‐generated stimuli on an existing real environment, enhancing the participant's perception of the real world (by merging reality and virtuality) and, therefore, increasing the sense of reality involved in the exposure.…”

“…AR superimposes synthetic computer‐generated stimuli on an existing real environment, enhancing the participant's perception of the real world (by merging reality and virtuality) and, therefore, increasing the sense of reality involved in the exposure. Importantly, the costs involved in the production of the environment are lower than in VR, which may increase the generalization of its use in clinical practice (for a review, see (Baus & Bouchard, 2014)). A few studies to date have employed AR techniques for stimuli delivery in anxiety disorders, namely in specific phobias such as spider phobia (Wrzesien, Burkhardt, Alcañiz, & Botella, 2011; Wrzesien et al., 2013) and cockroach phobia (C. Botella et al., 2011, 2010).…”

Choice of Human–Computer Interaction Mode in Stroke Rehabilitation

“…The current study examined two forms, PC and AR, incorporating the popular Fruit Ninja game into each. A PC approach to gaming substitutes a non-immersive virtual environment in place of the real world 11 , shifting the subject’s attention towards the virtual world (computer monitor) rather than to the real world (the tabletop upon which the paretic hand is moving) 37 . An AR approach to gaming overlays computer-generated virtual objects into the real world, thereby offering a direct interaction between user and computer output.…”