=
All of this background information on the recent development of VR psychotherapy technologies influenced the birth and development of SelfDiscoVR. SelfDiscoVR is a brain-powered VR experience that stabilizes the user’s mood and maximizes brain performance by analyzing and responding to the brain’s reactions to certain thoughts and memories in real time. As the user follows the commands in the application by thinking about certain memories, objects, people, places and/or past events while observing the virtual objects around them, the software constantly monitors the fluctuations in the user’s alpha and beta brainwaves. Depending on how the brain reacts to certain thoughts, the virtual objects start changing color and shape, revealing the emotions that are triggered in the process. This data is later on used to help the user realize and overcome what in their subconscious is actually causing them to suffer from a negative psychological state.
PROPOSING
At the beginning of the experience, the spectator is asked to put on the WAVR headset and sit on a stool with a vibration engine attached underneath. WAVR is a neuro-controlled VR/EEG technology that monitors and uses the fluctuations in a person’s brainwaves to control a VR application. The EEG microcontroller monitors the fluctuation in the spectator’s brainwave frequency and sends commands to the VR application in real time throughout the experience. There are two pedestal fans facing the spectator, about 3 feet apart from one another. The rest of the audience is able to watch the experience from the spectator’s point of view in real time on the projector screen.
The story begins as the spectator opens his/her eyes to an alternative reality. This new reality consists of visual and auditory elements that are reminiscent of our universe’s reality, except it is much more abstract and chaotic. Being in this alternative reality feels similar to being inside a tornado in space. The vibrating chair and the pedestal fans make the experience fully immersive as the spectator feels the strong vibrations in his/her entire body and the powerful wind in his/her face, while watching the space tornado swirl around him/her. In addition to the abstract 3D models of many random elements from Earth and other planets, we see halos, glare and beams of light shining in various colors, fluid 3D shapes flowing across the scene and reflective objects that alter the spectator’s visual perception. In addition to the visual elements, the spectator hears audio that sounds a lot like many random tracks of music, people’s conversations and sounds from everyday life were overlapped and fast-forwarded. Throughout the experience, the user is expected to keep relaxing in order to slow down the space tornado and choose virtual objects to focus on. As he/she tries to relax, the EEG headset keeps recording his/her brain activity. If he/she manages to go into a relaxed meditative state by bringing his/her brainwave frequency down to a level below 12Hz, the EEG device sends a command to the VR application that slows down the tornado, making the visual elements and the words spoken in the audio more distinguishable. The spectator then starts looking around and picks a virtual object to focus on. Using the eye-tracking technology, the VR application is able to detect which object the spectator is looking at. If the spectator manages to go into a deep meditative state by bringing his/her brainwave frequency down to a level below 8Hz while staring at one object, all other objects eventually start to disappear. The entire scene slowly gets reconstructed around the chosen object. At the end of the experience, the spectator is shown a graph of their brainwave patterns throughout the experience. He/she finds out at what moments during the experience his/her brainwave frequency fluctuated, and how his/her level of concentration compares to the average person. In addition to the brainwave graph, the spectator also receives a detailed analysis of what each virtual object he/she picked during the experience tells about his/her subconscious mind. Overall, the method and goal of the SelfDiscoVR experience is mainly to analyze, understand and treat a psychological fluctuation by having the user change and customize certain variables of the virtual environment themselves, simply by relaxing and focusing on virtual objects.
ANALYZE
Although it is indisputable that VR has come of age for clinical and research applications, there are three major obstacles in the way of making SelfDiscoVR a VR psychotherapy experience that is used worldwide as an effective method of psychological treatment. The first and the most important one of these obstacles is standardization. The environment that the VR experience is observed needs to be standardized for every spectator in order to maximize efficiency. Developers need to carefully adapt the new VR technology to the specific requirements of the clinical setting. As more and more research and development is done, it is certain that there will be much more progress made in standardization in the following years.
Another important factor is the extremely high costs of these technologies. Companies that believe in the power of making software open-source and reaching out to as many people as possible are trying hard to make their products as affordable as possible. It is very important to consider the scalability factor in such a scenario, since the high costs of these technologies has been one of the major factors that turned down the common adoption of virtual reality in the medicine industry.
The third and perhaps the most underrated factor that disables VR technology from being a practical method for psychology research is the fact that the majority of the applications that are currently available to researchers and users are not very user-friendly. Since it is a whole new technology, VR is something that requires time and practice for the average user to adapt to its user experience. The experiences created for clinical purposes that are currently on the market lack the sense of a good user experience design. Companies are so focused on making these applications functional that they fail to pay enough attention to the way the application is experienced by the end user. Therefore, the essence of most experiences get lost in translation and fail to be helpful to users in most cases. Even the best virtual reality applications that are currently available, including VR games, require a significant amount of time for the first time user to get used to the user interaction. It is extremely important to interview psychotherapists, psychiatrists, psychology researchers and psychotherapy patients to understand their needs and the problems their encounter in order to provide the most seamless user experience possible to both sides. Since collecting brainwave data in psychology research is a delicate process, it is vital to provide the ideal environment for the patient, as well as a user experience that makes sure the user does not get lost trying to figure out how the application works at any given point during the experience. A bad user experience design would immediately affect the data being collected, since most users tend to get nervous around technology that they are initially unable to figure out how to use.
EVALUATE
It is vital to consider the factors that disable the practical usage of virtual reality in clinical research in the development of a virtual reality expose application that uses real-time brainwave data for generating custom virtual content to balance daily emotional and psychological fluctuations. First of all, it needs to give enough control and interaction to both the researcher and the end user in order to maximize the efficiency of the treatment and the data collected. Secondly, the product needs to be affordable. It is very important to consider the scalability factor in such a scenario, since the high costs of these technologies has been one of the major factors that disabled the common adoption of virtual reality in the medicine industry.