Arielle Klinetsky – BTMM 4446 – 4/13/10

READING SUMMARY: Telepresence and… Health and medicine

The three readings that I am summarizing are quite short. Each reading was a page long but very dense. The first reading used a lot of letters and numbers in combinations that I had never read or heard of before. The first and last articles are abstracts that came from the same reading. The abstracts are a summary of the studies that were done.

Han, K., Ku, J., Kim, K., Park, J., Lee, H., Jang, H. J., Kim, I. Y., Kim, J., Kim,C. H., Nam, S., & Kim, S. I. (2006). Analysis of VR-Based Head-Motion to a VirtualAvatar: Characteristic of Schizophrenia. Cyberpsychology & Behavior, 9(6), 679-680. [Note: This is a different abstract than the one on the sylalbus]

In short, the article reflects on a study done with virtual reality avatars and schizophrenic patients.The article was extremely confusing, dense, and used terms I had never heard of.It was definitely not written for the average person, who doesn’t understand the sophisticated terms.

Virtual reality (VR) offers social and cognitive training for people who have schizophrenia and autism.The VR allows researchers to see how schizophrenic patients interact socially with others.The eye contact that patients make is one of the most important factors considered in a social behavior study.The study measured the eye contact and head motion of the patient.

The participant met an avatar in the virtual environment.In the beginning of the study, the participants are introduced to the avatars and conduct a conversation with them.The patients were observed while they interacted with their avatars in a virtual world.The study concluded that it’s possible that schizophrenia patients have difficulty watching or observing other people due to their anxiety/cognition problems.

Brown, W., Basil, M., & Bocarnea, M. (2003). The influence of famous athletes on health beliefs and practices: Mark McGwire, child abuse prevention, and Androstenedione. Journal of Health Communication, 8(1, January/February), 41 –

While reading this article, I didn’t really see what it had to do with presence or anything that tied into the class, until Professor Lombard revised my summary.This article was especially interesting to me because I love baseball and remember when Marc McGwire and Sammy Sosa were breaking homerun records.

Marc McGwire broke Roger Maris’s home run record in 1998.After he broke the record, the media made the public aware of his use of steroids.McGwire was caught with the muscle building dietary supplement known as Androstenedione.McGwire was extremely patient and gracious to the media during this time.The study“explored two types of audience involvement with sports celebrities, parasocial interaction and identification, and how involvement with sports celebrities can influence health-related awareness, beliefs and intended behavior” (p. ?). Parasocial interaction is a type of presence, that makes people feel connected with people that they don’t know or have never met.People related to Marc McGwire parasocially when he was caught with steroids and breaking homerun records.

Christen, P., LaPointe, E., Kato, P. M., Marin-Bowling, V. M., & Cole, S. (2006). Model for developing and evaluating video games or other technology-based solutions to improve the health and quality of life of young people with cancer or other chronic illnesses. Cyberpsychology & Behavior, 9(6), 665-665.

The article was extremely redundant and didn’t provide enough information or data to better understand the study and its results.This article focused on a study that compared two types of treatment – virtual reality therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy.These therapies were used for patients exhibiting major depression and anxiety.The survey included 20 patients of ages 25 to 50. “Benefits of VT are more realistic assessment, reduced therapy cost, increased safety, improved quality of life” (p. 665).

The abstract of this study suggested that video game technology helped young people with cancer engage and learn about their disease.HopeLab consulted oncologists, epidemiologists, cell biologists, behavioral psychologists, and video game producers, as well as adolescents with cancer, to identify vital criteria when using video game technology and how it impacts heal-related outcomes.Researchers applied scientific methods that would allow them to evaluate whether the game would have an impact on kids with cancer.“HopeLab adopted an interactive game development process to incorporate the input of young people with cancer and our scientific objectives into game design” (p. 665).They made sure the game would meaningfully reflect their input.“The result was Re-Mission, a 20-level, third person shooter video game in which players pilot a nanobot, Roxxi, through the body of fictional cancer patients to destroy cancer cells, defend against bacterial infections, and grapple with often life-threatening side effects” (p. 665).HopeLab discovered that video games can successfully be designed to be fun and to improve the health and quality of life of young people with cancer, despite what other research has shown.