kit724-assignment2-vr

2 years ago by weite

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1. Introduction

Screen recording

This Virtual Reality (VR) application offers a simulation environment for users with acrophobia (fear of heights) to overcome their fears. This is also a low-cost therapy method to help those people through exposure to the environment they are afraid of.

2. Description of the application

The purpose of this application is to create a safe therapy environment for people who have fear of heights as a treatment method. Acrophobia, or the fear of heights, affects about one-third of people, and visual height intolerance is also common (Huppert 2020). Low-level exposure therapy is frequently used as a treatment method by exposure the patients to the environment. According to research, exposure therapy is the most effective treatment for certain phobias. However, it’s not easy for those people to access these environments and they could be in danger situation. Building a real treatment environment is costly and complex, and patients may be resistant to the environment (after all, they are afraid of it). The VR technology can help create reality-based simulation environment, which can make exposure therapy easier to achieve. According to Morina et al. (2015), VR can replicate phobic stimuli to make patients uncomfortable, comparably to real-world stimuli. Hence, this VR exposure therapy (VRET) application using VR interface technology to create a friendly and safe VR exposure therapy for acrophobia users to experience it.

3. Interaction Design

In this application, there is a city model with many skyscraper buildings. This city model was a complete model demo imported from assets store, so it was kept as a whole instead of picking parts. As a result, the main interface area of this application was restricted to only two buildings.

For a high-altitude experience, users can access to skyscraper building’s roof through different elevators. One type of elevator is running scheduled and another one is operated manually by interaction from user. The scheduled elevator was imported from assets store for users to passively reach the roof. This elevator brings users directly to the building’s roof without any pause.

The latter manual elevator requires user to actively interact by press the buttons to rise and fall the elevator. This interaction forces user to take action in order to access the high place which they fear of, and this can help the user to overcome the difficulty. Users can interact with this manual elevator any time during the operation to pause or restart. For example, users can pause the elevator to a specific height of the skyscraper so they can find a low-level height of their fear.

Figure 1 Users can pause the elevator at a height they want

If the users decide to reach the roof by either of the elevator, they can have chance to experience something even scarier for people with fear of heights – cross two roof via a narrow bridge! This is a big challenge but also an opportunity to allow users to freely feel the high altitude without any dangerous consequence.

Figure 2 Users reach the roof

Storyboard

Figure 3 Storyboard

4. Technical Development

This VR application was developed based on the Oculus Quest headset which is a wireless head-mounted display (HMD). With widely consumer VR products availability, technological problems for exposer therapy such as poor graphic fidelity, cybersickness, and expenses are becoming less and less significant (Rimer et al. 2021). Oculus Quest can run software wirelessly and it has a hand tracking feature so users can interact with the program with hands. Both features can improve the immersion for users. Immersion is important to consider for VRET as it can be a requirement for fear response (Gromer et al. 2018). With the hand tracking feature, users need to access the high attitude by their “hands” pressing elevator button in the game.

5. Descriptions of 3D Models

A simple manual operated elevator created by three cubes (two for buttons and one for floor) and one cylinder from Unity original object and two fences from assets store (Realistic Fences Pack).

Figure 4 3D Model - Elevator One

Scheduled elevator run regularly between the floor to the roof. (Lift Engine Lite)

Figure 5 3D Model - Elevator Two

Narrow bridges created by pack from assets store on the building’s roof without protection for users to cross the building roof or walk along.

Figure 6 3D Model - Roof bridge

6. References

6.1 Academic articles

Gromer, D, Madeira, O, Gast, P, Nehfischer, M, Jost, M, Muller, M, Muhlberger, A & Pauli, P 2018, ‘Height Simulation in a Virtual Reality CAVE System: Validity of Fear Responses and Effects of an Immersion Manipulation’, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, vol. 25, viewed 26 August 2022<https: doi.org="" 10.3389="" fnhum.2018.00372="">.</https:>

Huppert, D, Wuehr, M & Brandt, T 2020, ‘Acrophobia and visual height intolerance: advances in epidemiology and mechanisms’, Journal of Neurol , vol. 267, pp. 231–240.

Morina, N, Ijntema, H, Meyerbroker, K & Emmelkamp, PMG 2015, ‘Can virtual reality exposure therapy gains be generalized to real-life? A meta-analysis of studies applying behavioral assessments’, Behaviour Research and Therapy, vol. 74, pp. 18-24.