1. Digital Care for the Physical Environment A UCL Project Proposal for Equator
Virtual Environments and Computer Graphics
Department of Computer Science
University College London

2. People Douglas Gourlay, RF Nick Dalton, RF (leaving)
Vino Vinayagamoorthy, RF+PhD student
Joel Jordan, (PhD student, Nov 2001)
Anna Soobrati (PhD student, January 2002)
Anthony Steed, UCL Equator project lead
Celine Loscos, PI
Mel Slater, PI
The avatars

3. “Much of what therapists engage in with their clients
is the construction of artificial environments in which
people can learn to overcome their fears.”
Prof. Chris Brewin
Department of Psychology, UCL

4. Outline Introduction: Background Research Issues Paranoid Ideation
Agoraphobia
The Way Ahead

5. 1. Introduction Use of avatars in psychotherapy applications
Social phobia + paranoid ideation
What is required to make these avatars believable?
Will a laughing avatar make you laugh?
A weeping avatar make you weep?
Examples…in public speaking phobia

6. Positive Audience
Audience made eye contact and other movements

7. Negative Audience
Audience carried out many negative behaviours

8. Neutral Audience Audience glanced and otherwise fidgeted
No explicit positive or negative behaviour

10. Overall Results on FOPS
Evidence suggests that people do react to virtual audiences with appropriate affect
Next stage is to build the method in the context of a treatment programme
Two clients have already been seen (CAVE)
Fundamental research question remains: Why does it work?

11. Paranoid Ideation
This is the typical pattern of thinking displayed in cases of paranoia; it is characterised by suspiciousness and beliefs that one is being followed, plotted against, persecuted, etc.
Objective
To assess the extent to which paranoid thoughts could be triggered in a VE
To help in understanding how this happens

14. Typical Debriefing Comment
“It was really weird, because they were all definitely in on
something and they were all trying to make me nervous.
It was clear that they were trying to mock me, they kept
on looking at me and when I looked back, they were uuhh…
The guy with the suit was really weird because he kept smiling at
me and it was quite sinister.”
“There were three people on the right – one with a suit,
I think he was a business man working on his laptop…”

15. 2. Research Issues Digital-physical interface
Synchronous or asynchronous
Digital city remains our technical focus:
Graphics and modelling issues
Properties that environments and activities must have to maintain believability, presence, copresence
‘Effectiveness’

16. Effectiveness Effectiveness – for what? Psychotherapy application
Provides clear measures of effectiveness
Does the VE and activities within generate the anxiety response that would have been generated in real life?
Can be measured using standard psychological instruments developed over many years.

17. Levels of Research Algorithmic and interface research
Properties for effectiveness within the given domain
How can these systems be used to help people in the real world, to generate treatment programs, self-help and support groups?

18. 3. Agoraphobia
include fears not only of open spaces but also of related aspects such as the presence of crowds and the difficulty of immediate easy escape to a safe place (usually home).
Plan to initially concentrate on this
Operates within the ‘digital city’ broadly defined (shops, transport, streets)

19. Issues Agoraphobia – problem with people going out
Initial systems PC based for home use
Starting point – study of patients and therapists
Ethnomethodology? Focus groups?
Identify commonalities

20. Issues Create a parameterised environment
Individuals learn to control aspects of environment that are particularly important to them (eg, darkness, crowd density, location of exits)
Relapse – panic attacks in vivo
Hand-held display devices to reestablish calm and control – PDAs, digital toys?

21. A virtual experience within a village
on a flat PC screen
in 3D with stereo glasses
in a 3D immersive environment
The user can trigger
the number of people surrounding
degree of interaction (egocentric/exocentric)
weather
lighting conditions

22. Issues Physiological feedback Self-help and mass counselling
Anxiety measured and relayed to local PDA and to central monitoring system – use of wearable devices?
Self-help and mass counselling
Use home-based PCs to support shared VEs where people can meet together – especially in anxiety producing environments

23. Issues Recall of something that calms the users
Pictures of environment that makes them feel safe (within a digital environment or on a hand-held display)
Adapted for each individual
Safe environment behind them
e.g. white wall

24. Issues
Using the environments as a lab to study perceptual distortions that often accompany anxiety states
Work on social phobia and paranoid ideation would continue
Strong crossover between the various types of application and the underlying technology needed to support them

25. 4. The Way Ahead
Provides a strong applications focus for our group, with the necessity for underlying research in our specialities
Continued meeting with colleagues from psychology to map out a 6month – 3 year programme in the Equator context.
End-goal has clear benefit to wider society.