VR Mobile Acrophobia Treatment
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25007/ajnu.v6n3a95Keywords:
Acrophobia Treatment, Exposure Therapy, Virtual Reality, Mobile application, FeasibleAbstract
Virtual Reality applications have significantly developed over the past few years. The large computing power nowadays has empowered building applications with high quality graphics that can emulate the real world. This advancement has contributed to the psychiatric department in the process of anxiety treatment.
Experiencing fear in dangerous situations is natural. Usually people are afraid of predators, insects and different hazardous environments. However, certain people have anxiety problems from situations, living creatures, places or things were it is natural to others. The term phobia refers to excessive irrational fear and anxiety in natural situations. Phobias have disrupted people’s life in many ways. Acrophobia or “Fear of Heights” is were patients experience irrational fear of heights.
Virtual Reality has had a great contribution to phobia treatment. As patients can be exposed to their fears in a gradual manner. In this paper, a VR environment was developed to help psychiatrists in Acrophobia diagnosed patients’ treatment. This article focuses on VR environment development and its limitations on a mobile platform. Since mobile devices processing power is much less than VR sets which are usually used. The modeling and texturing limitations imposed by mobile hardware greatly restrict detail.
Downloads
References
Krijn, M. (2006). Virtual Reality and Specific Phobias. University of Amsterdam. Amsterdam: Cybermind Interactive Nederland and CRLO Displays Limited.
Maatjes, N. C. (2005). The Treatment of Phobias using Virtual Reality. University of Twente, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science. Enschede: University of Twente.
Miloff, A., Lindner, P., Hamilton, W., Reuterskiold, L., Andersson, G., & Carlbring, P. (2016). Single-session gamified virtual reality exposure therapy for spider phobia vs. traditional exposure therapy: study protocol for a randomized controlled non-inferiority trial. Linköping University. Linköping: Linköping University Electronic Press.
Oculus VR LLC. (2017). Oculus Utilities for Unity. Retrieved May 1, 2017, from Developer.Oculus.com: https://developer.oculus.com/documentation/unity/latest/concepts/unity-utilities-overview/
Parab, T., Pawar, D., & Chaudhari, A. (2016). A Cost Effective Approach towards Virtual Reality: Phobia Exposure Therapy . International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer and Communication Engineering , 5 (3).
Technologies, U. (n.d.). Raycasting.
Unity Technologies. (2017, March 29). Animation. Retrieved April 1, 2017, from docs.unity3d.com: https://docs.unity3d.com/550/Documentation/ScriptReference/Animation.html
Unity Technologies. (2017, March 29). Colliders. Retrieved April 1, 2017, from docs.unity3d.com: https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/CollidersOverview.html
Unity Technologies. (2017). Raycasting. Retrieved April 1, 2017, from Unity3d.com: https://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/topics/physics/raycasting
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Authors retain copyright
The use of a Creative Commons License enables authors/editors to retain copyright to their work. Publications can be reused and redistributed as long as the original author is correctly attributed.
- Copyright
- The researcher(s), whether a single or joint research paper, must sell and transfer to the publisher (the Academic Journal of Nawroz University) through all the duration of the publication which starts from the date of entering this Agreement into force, the exclusive rights of the research paper/article. These rights include the translation, reuse of papers/articles, transmit or distribute, or use the material or parts(s) contained therein to be published in scientific, academic, technical, professional journals or any other periodicals including any other works derived from them, all over the world, in English and Arabic, whether in print or in electronic edition of such journals and periodicals in all types of media or formats now or that may exist in the future. Rights also include giving license (or granting permission) to a third party to use the materials and any other works derived from them and publish them in such journals and periodicals all over the world. Transfer right under this Agreement includes the right to modify such materials to be used with computer systems and software, or to reproduce or publish it in e-formats and also to incorporate them into retrieval systems.
- Reproduction, reference, transmission, distribution or any other use of the content, or any parts of the subjects included in that content in any manner permitted by this Agreement, must be accompanied by mentioning the source which is (the Academic Journal of Nawroz University) and the publisher in addition to the title of the article, the name of the author (or co-authors), journal’s name, volume or issue, publisher's copyright, and publication year.
- The Academic Journal of Nawroz University reserves all rights to publish research papers/articles issued under a “Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction of the paper/article by any means, provided that the original work is correctly cited.
- Reservation of Rights
The researcher(s) preserves all intellectual property rights (except for the one transferred to the publisher under this Agreement).
- Researcher’s guarantee
The researcher(s) hereby guarantees that the content of the paper/article is original. It has been submitted only to the Academic Journal of Nawroz University and has not been previously published by any other party.
In the event that the paper/article is written jointly with other researchers, the researcher guarantees that he/she has informed the other co-authors about the terms of this agreement, as well as obtaining their signature or written permission to sign on their behalf.
The author further guarantees:
- The research paper/article does not contain any defamatory statements or illegal comments.
- The research paper/article does not violate other's rights (including but not limited to copyright, patent, and trademark rights).
This research paper/article does not contain any facts or instructions that could cause damages or harm to others, and publishing it does not lead to disclosure of any confidential information.