TY - GEN
T1 - Virtual environment to treat social anxiety
AU - Cláudio, Ana Paula
AU - Carmo, Maria Beatriz
AU - Pinheiro, Tânia
AU - Esteves, Francisco
AU - Lopes, Eder
PY - 2013
Y1 - 2013
N2 - The aim of our work is to propose a Virtual Reality solution to treat social anxiety, applying cognitive-behavioral therapies, that preserves the sense of immersion without requiring the use of expensive special purpose hardware. We have developed an application, called Virtual Spectators, that creates a simulation taking place in a virtual scenario inhabited by animated virtual humans whose behaviors are dynamically controlled by the therapist. To evaluate the effective usefulness of the tool from the point of view of the therapist, we performed an evaluation of the application with a set of these professionals familiarized with the use of exposure therapy. Their feedback was positive and they were enthusiastic about the possibility of using such a tool to support a session of exposure therapy.
AB - The aim of our work is to propose a Virtual Reality solution to treat social anxiety, applying cognitive-behavioral therapies, that preserves the sense of immersion without requiring the use of expensive special purpose hardware. We have developed an application, called Virtual Spectators, that creates a simulation taking place in a virtual scenario inhabited by animated virtual humans whose behaviors are dynamically controlled by the therapist. To evaluate the effective usefulness of the tool from the point of view of the therapist, we performed an evaluation of the application with a set of these professionals familiarized with the use of exposure therapy. Their feedback was positive and they were enthusiastic about the possibility of using such a tool to support a session of exposure therapy.
KW - Social anxiety
KW - Virtual humans
KW - Virtual reality
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84880740535&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-642-39241-2_49
DO - 10.1007/978-3-642-39241-2_49
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84880740535
SN - 9783642392405
T3 - Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
SP - 442
EP - 451
BT - Design, user experience, and usability
T2 - 2nd International Conference on Design, User Experience, and Usability: Health, Learning, Playing, Cultural, and Cross-Cultural User Experience, DUXU 2013, Held as Part of 15th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCI Int. 2013
Y2 - 21 July 2013 through 26 July 2013
ER -