Virtual reality for the rehabilitation and prevention of intimate partner violence – From brain to behavior: A narrative review

Abstract

Rehabilitation and prevention strategies to reduce intimate partner violence (IPV) have limited effectiveness in terms of improving key risk factors and reducing occurrence. Accumulated experimental evidence demonstrates that virtual embodiment, which results in the illusion of owning a virtual body, has a large impact on people’s emotional, cognitive, and behavioral responses. This narrative review discusses work that has investigated how embodied perspective - taking in virtual reality has been used as a tool to reduce bias, to enhance recognition of the emotional state of another, and to reduce violent behaviors, in particular in the realm of IPV. Some of the potential neurological mechanisms behind these affective and behavioral changes are also discussed. The process of rehabilitation and prevention is complex and not always effective, but the integration of neuroscience-inspired and validated state-of-the-art technology into the rehabilitation process can make a positive contribution.

Which effective virtual reality (VR) interventions exist for the prevention and rehabilitation of intimate partner violence (IPV)?

“…VR offers the opportunity to literally feel like you are in someone else's shoes, so these latter studies targeted empathy, perspective taking, and emotion recognition, a common practice within IPV, since these constructs are indirectly linked to aggressive behavior. Three rehabilitation studies (Seinfeld et al, 2018;Gonzalez-Liencres et al, 2020;Seinfeld et al, 2023) and three prevention studies (De Borst et al, 2020;Seinfeld et al, 2020;Ventura et al, 2021) have included these measures through interventions using embodiment of a female victim. Lastly et al, 2020 used VR in order to measure if prior embodiment with the victim of a sexual harassment situation could modify conformity when administering shocks to a woman.…”

“…While most prevention studies focused on increasing assertiveness skills and empathy to prevent being the victim or the offender of IPV or sexual harassment (Ventura et al, 2021;Rowe et al, 2015;De Borst et al, 2020), one study sought to help reduce sexual harassment by training bystanders (Rawski et al, 2022), and another one focused on trying to explore group aggression and bystander behavior through embodiment with a victim of sexual harassment (Neyret et al, 2020). Regarding rehabilitation studies, most were done with the purpose of reducing offenders' risk of IPV or aggressive behavior (Seinfeld et al, 2018;Gonzalez-Liencres et al, 2020;Klein Tuente et al, 2020;Seinfeld et al, 2023), while one study focused on the rehabilitation of sexual violence survivors (Lee and Cha, 2021).…”

“…Among those who had recruited offenders, one study specifically recruited men who were inpatients at the time of the study, while the other two recruited men who were convicted and sentenced to attend a domestic violence intervention program. Regarding VR treatment length, most studies included a single VR session, where participants embodied an avatar for a few minutes and experiencing an IPV scene as a victim through the eyes of the avatar (Seinfeld et al, 2020;Gonzalez-Liencres et al, 2020;Seinfeld et al, 2018;Seinfeld et al, 2023;Ventura et al, 2021, De Borst et al, 2020. In Rawski et al, 2022 one short training session was also used, but participants watched the situation as a bystander.…”

“…However, thirdperson perspective can still have an effect as well, especially if participants are indirectly affected by the violence even if it is not directly targeted at them. In fact, when participants embody a child that is put in a situation of abuse and violence from the father avatar to the mother avatar, where they are standing next to the mother, there is an increase in emotion recognition of angry faces and physiological reactions (Seinfeld et al, 2023). Emotion recognition outcomes are important as they can increase the ability to empathize with the victim and therefore decrease perpetration.…”

“…There are several implications to this review. First, studies that focused on rehabilitation interventions in the forensic context have shown that VR could be a potential tool to reduce recidivism by increasing empathy within the forensic population (Seinfeld et al, 2018;Gonzalez-Liencres et al, 2020;Seinfeld et al, 2018;Seinfeld et al, 2023;Ventura et al, 2021;De Borst et al, 2020). However, we would need future longitudinal studies following the forensic population to see whether these interventions directly have an effect on recidivism.…”