Muhammad Hussain plays a virtual reality rock-climbing game in the Virtual Reality Lab, part of the iSchool at the University of Washington (Photo courtesy Vriti Wadhwa).
For people afraid of heights, leaning over a wall when rock climbing could cause feelings of terror and nausea. Being attached to ropes when climbing is not always reassuring for an acrophobe.
But perhaps experiencing similar conditions in virtual reality — with two feet on the ground — could help people overcome those fears.
That’s the theory of six University of Washington students, who have developed a virtual reality (VR) rock climbing game to study how users experience the fear of heights. The game has the potential to help researchers analyze how virtual reality can possibly find solutions for patients with other phobias.
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The team experimented with a virtual element called six degrees of freedom, which refers to stimulated capability given to the body to move in different directions. This makes the experience more realistic for users.
Virtual reality has been used in phobia-related research before. Dr. Hunter Hoffman, Director of the Virtual Reality Research Center at the Human Photonics Lab at the University of Washington has done extensive research on how virtual reality can treat pain and phobia.
“Most people avoid the thing they’re afraid of,” Hoffman said. “The nice thing about virtual reality is that people are more willing to go closer to their fears.”
In his research, Hoffman used virtual reality to study people with arachnophobia, fear of spiders. His work allowed him to see how the virtual world could help people confront their fears.
“The ability to customize the experience for each individual patient is what makes the process a lot more effective,” Hoffman said. “In theory, virtual reality makes it a lot easier to change the program accordingly.”
Hoffman isn’t the only scientist studying VR as a treatment for phobias. Virtually Better is a company that sells virtual reality-related research to psychologists for further analysis or use in studies.
“Therapists use experiences like this to help with phobia of heights, water, and other exposure therapies,” Hussain said. “When you think of immersive experiences, you think of virtual reality. It kind of speaks for itself.”
The team of students has already presented their work at the AT&T VR Hackathon in Bellevue, Wash. and now hope to take their game to even more competitions and hackathons.
Source: GeekWire