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Comparison of the Effect of Exposing Users for Height While Being Active Versus Passive in a Virtual Environment - A Pilot Study

Alce, Günter LU ; Hanserup, Felicia and Palm, Kornelia (2022) 1st International Conference on eXtended Reality, XR SALENTO 2022 In Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics) 13445 LNCS. p.18-36
Abstract

Phobias have historically and evolutionary been vital for humans to escape quickly or fight in dangerous situations. The anxieties that phobias evoke have made people live longer. Evolutionarily, anxiety has been good, but fear and anxiety come in unjustified situations for the civilized population in the 21st century. Some people have an extra sensitive reaction system activated too often in irrelevant contexts. More than 10% of Sweden’s population has some phobia. However, only a few persons search for help to overcome their phobias, partly because they know they have to be exposed to their phobia to overcome it. An alternative exposure treatment is using virtual reality (VR). Recently, we have seen an intensified development of VR... (More)

Phobias have historically and evolutionary been vital for humans to escape quickly or fight in dangerous situations. The anxieties that phobias evoke have made people live longer. Evolutionarily, anxiety has been good, but fear and anxiety come in unjustified situations for the civilized population in the 21st century. Some people have an extra sensitive reaction system activated too often in irrelevant contexts. More than 10% of Sweden’s population has some phobia. However, only a few persons search for help to overcome their phobias, partly because they know they have to be exposed to their phobia to overcome it. An alternative exposure treatment is using virtual reality (VR). Recently, we have seen an intensified development of VR headsets such as HTC Vive and Oculus Quest. These headsets come with relatively high display resolution and great tracking of the hand controllers, which opens up opportunities to develop and evaluate more immersive interactive virtual environments that can be used, e.g., for exposure treatment. This paper presents two VR prototypes developed and evaluated using the new generation of VR technology. The two VR prototypes were then compared in a user study with 22 participants exposed to height while being active versus being passive. The main contribution of this paper is to elucidate knowledge about the experiment of comparing AE versus PE of heights.

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Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
; and
organization
publishing date
type
Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Acrophobia, Exposure treatment, Virtual reality
host publication
Extended Reality - 1st International Conference, XR Salento 2022, Proceedings
series title
Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
editor
De Paolis, Lucio Tommaso ; Arpaia, Pasquale and Sacco, Marco
volume
13445 LNCS
pages
19 pages
publisher
Springer Science and Business Media B.V.
conference name
1st International Conference on eXtended Reality, XR SALENTO 2022
conference location
Virtual, Online
conference dates
2022-07-06 - 2022-07-08
external identifiers
  • scopus:85138002942
ISSN
1611-3349
0302-9743
ISBN
9783031155451
DOI
10.1007/978-3-031-15546-8_2
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
05085c39-dd31-4671-b614-b570fd8f1c98
date added to LUP
2022-11-30 13:08:44
date last changed
2024-04-16 14:39:56
@inproceedings{05085c39-dd31-4671-b614-b570fd8f1c98,
  abstract     = {{<p>Phobias have historically and evolutionary been vital for humans to escape quickly or fight in dangerous situations. The anxieties that phobias evoke have made people live longer. Evolutionarily, anxiety has been good, but fear and anxiety come in unjustified situations for the civilized population in the 21st century. Some people have an extra sensitive reaction system activated too often in irrelevant contexts. More than 10% of Sweden’s population has some phobia. However, only a few persons search for help to overcome their phobias, partly because they know they have to be exposed to their phobia to overcome it. An alternative exposure treatment is using virtual reality (VR). Recently, we have seen an intensified development of VR headsets such as HTC Vive and Oculus Quest. These headsets come with relatively high display resolution and great tracking of the hand controllers, which opens up opportunities to develop and evaluate more immersive interactive virtual environments that can be used, e.g., for exposure treatment. This paper presents two VR prototypes developed and evaluated using the new generation of VR technology. The two VR prototypes were then compared in a user study with 22 participants exposed to height while being active versus being passive. The main contribution of this paper is to elucidate knowledge about the experiment of comparing AE versus PE of heights.</p>}},
  author       = {{Alce, Günter and Hanserup, Felicia and Palm, Kornelia}},
  booktitle    = {{Extended Reality - 1st International Conference, XR Salento 2022, Proceedings}},
  editor       = {{De Paolis, Lucio Tommaso and Arpaia, Pasquale and Sacco, Marco}},
  isbn         = {{9783031155451}},
  issn         = {{1611-3349}},
  keywords     = {{Acrophobia; Exposure treatment; Virtual reality}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  pages        = {{18--36}},
  publisher    = {{Springer Science and Business Media B.V.}},
  series       = {{Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)}},
  title        = {{Comparison of the Effect of Exposing Users for Height While Being Active Versus Passive in a Virtual Environment - A Pilot Study}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15546-8_2}},
  doi          = {{10.1007/978-3-031-15546-8_2}},
  volume       = {{13445 LNCS}},
  year         = {{2022}},
}