The Equator Research Challenge:

Agoraphobia Treatment in Virtual Reality

Could suffers of Agoraphobia to learn how to cope with their anxieties using the latest technology in the area of Virtual Reality (VR)? Computer graphic experts are currently able to create believable artificial environments in which people can learn how to overcome their fears, and acquire stable strategies of situational behaviour that would help them to deal with the world of others, in a public space.

Prof. Chris Brewin, Clinical Psychologist at the Department of Psychology University College London (UCL), Prof. Mel Slater and the Virtual Reality team from Computer Science, are currently working with the National Phobics Society(NPS) and The Institute for Health Research at Lancaster University to investigate a nouvelle therapy for the treatment of Agoraphobia. The idea is to recreate a believable artificial environment that stimulates physical responses as a real one, but that can be individually controlled by the suffer to experience only the features that can be handled by the patient. As the techniques to cope with the anxiety are learned trough a number of virtual sessions, the richness of the environment is increased to transform the virtual into a real world bringing the patient to be able to cope with the anxieties in the everyday experience. When this stage is reached support could still be provided by constantly available digital help on portable devices, also under development, until one is able to rely solely on his own abilities.

The research project investigating digital therapy is called Equator and is an interdisciplinary research collaboration supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). One of the goals of the project, as well as providing care for suffers of Agoraphobia, is to understand and build relationships between physical and virtual reality and investigate the interface between the two. The project builds on the existing strengths and experiences of the University College London VR group, that over the past three years has conducted research together with clinical psychologists from UCL and the Institute of Psychiatry in London, to explore the extent to which virtual environments may be used to understand and treat anxiety orders. In the past they have focussed on social phobia, ‘fear of public speaking’, and carried out a small amount of work on more in general on social phobia. In each of the virtual environments created a real person interacts with virtual people in various possible settings - giving a talk to them (fear of public speaking), introducing oneself to them at a party (more general social phobia), and just being amongst them (paranoid ideation). The virtual characters respond by looking towards the real person, changing facial expression, saying things to them, changing body posture, physically moving away from the person, glancing towards and away, whispering to one another, and so on.

Unlike in the real world virtual characters can be controlled to help the suffers to deal with the responses of others. Most suffers feel uncomfortable in social scenarios, where the presence of others seems to lead personal freedom, uncontrollably, and provoke the fear of fear, the apprehension of gaining other’s visual attention in an explosion of panic attack.

The Equator project will use digital cities populated by digital people to treat in particular the fear of crowds, creating an environment that can be used to give suffers access to safe experiences in which they can overcome their fears.

Since people with Agoraphobic tendencies, might be initially need to perform the therapy in a place where they feel secure, the exposure to the virtual controllable environment could be initially experienced in safety of their home on a personal computer, and gradually increase the level of immersion until they are able to attend to a fully immersive experience in a environment similar to the one shown in figure 1.

Ina especially created room, or CAVE, images are projected onto the walls, and through the use of three dimensional glasses, can be seen as having a three dimensional dept by a person standing inside the CAVE. In figure 1 the user is holding a hand held device trough which she is able to control the features of the virtual world.

Figure 1- Experiencing a virtual world in a CAVE

With help of the National Phobic Society the researchers on the Equator project are currently seeking the help of suffers, or people that have learned how to overcome the social anxieties, to gain requirements for the construction of the virtual environments and to test the effectiveness of the digital therapy.

To provide your help, or simply a feed back, contact the National Phobic Society (NAT PLEASE WRITE WHO TO CONATCT IN NPS) or Dr. Daniela Romano at UCL, see details below.

Daniela M. Romano

Research Fellow

Computer Science

University College London

Gower Street

London, WC1E 6BT