Using Ultrasonic Haptics Within an Immersive Spider Exposure Environment to Provide a Multi-Sensorial Experience
Open accessAbstract
A proof of concept virtual reality system is presented that integrates ultrasonic feedback sensations to provide a demonstrative virtual reality exposure therapy environment containing multiple scenarios with virtual spiders. This system and environment were utilised to conduct a study containing 35 participants with the goal of investigating the effect the environment could have on their level of anxiety. This level of anxiety was measured in three different forms: changes in frontal asymmetry analysis of EEG data, changes in skin conductance levels and subjective units of distress. The Fear of Spiders Questionnaire was used to determine which participants in the study reported to be moderately afraid of spiders. For these participants all three measurement forms for anxiety showed statistically significant increases in a comparison between baseline and scenarios with the virtual spiders. A statistically significant correlation between scores on the Fear of Spiders Questionnaire and changes in anxiety shows the system to have had a greater effect on the anxiety levels of those who were more afraid of spiders, than those who were not. There was also a statistically significant correlation discovered between immersion and increase in anxiety, highlighting the significance of immersion in future virtual reality exposure therapy applications.
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There is fairly large variance in treatment outcomes between different VRET studies.
“However, there is fairly large variance in treatment outcomes between different VRET studies”
From Virtual reality exposure therapy for fear of spiders: an open trial and feasibility study of a new treatment for arachnophobia (2024) · cites this paper as [17]
The Discussion and section 2.2 discuss anxiety responses and findings from individual spider-VRET studies, but do not assess how much treatment outcomes vary between studies. Searches for cross-study variation in VRET treatment outcomes found no passage addressing that claim. (LLM, conf=0.73)
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MethodThe Impact of Different Perceptual Cues On Fear And Presence In Virtual Reality
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- Authors
- Brice, D., Gibson, Z., McGuinness, F., & Rafferty, K.
- Affiliations
- Queen's University Belfast (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Brice, Daniel
- Venue
- Frontiers in Virtual Reality
- Publisher
- Frontiers Media SA
- Published
- 2021-08-10
- Volume
- 2
- ISSN
- 2673-4192 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W3189135706
- Cited by
- 9
- References
- 66
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 1
- FWCI
- 0.77
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Frontiers in Virtual Reality (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Research Portal (Queen's University Belfast) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/V007335/1)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Human-Computer Interaction › Virtual Reality Applications and Impacts
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Digital Mental Health Interventions
- Keywords
- virtual reality exposure therapy, spider phobia, anxiety, multisensory experience, immersion, frontal EEG asymmetry, skin conductance, subjective units of distress
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