Design and evaluation of a virtual reality exposure therapy system with automatic free speech interaction

Design and evaluation of a virtual reality exposure therapy system with automatic free speech interaction

Ter Heijden, N.
Brinkman, W.P.

Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science

Mediamatics

2011-12-31

Research on Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy (VRET) to treat social phobia is not new. Still few studies focus on creating an elaborate conversation between the patient and characters in a virtual environment. This study focuses on techniques to run a semi-scripted conversation between virtual characters and a patient considering both manual and automatic speech response. Techniques evaluated are a speech detector and a speech recognizer. They were compared to a human control condition. We analyzed the flow and interaction individuals (N = 24) experienced and did a Turing like test. A case study with two phobic patients was also conducted. Both patients and therapist and their interaction with the system were observed. The study showed that the different automatic techniques had their (dis)advantages but often did not show any significant difference with the human control condition. A VRET system with semi-scripted conversations might therefore be suitable for the treatment of patients with social phobia. Using automatic speech response techniques might reduce the system workload demand placed upon therapists, allowing them to devote more attention towards monitoring the patient.

social phobia
public speaking
virtual reality exposure therapy
turing test
dialogue
natural speech
therapist
patient

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:924c076e-5bf3-4c45-b714-94d391cf9020

International Association of CyberPsychology, Training, and Rehabilitation

1784-9983

Journal of CyberTherapy and Rehabilitation, 4 (1), 2011; preliminary version

Institutional Repository

journal article

(c) 2011 Ter Heijden, N.
Brinkman, W.P.