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Updated: Aug 6, 2026
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Virtual Reality Experiments with Physiological Measures
Published on: August 29, 2018
Virtual reality exposure therapy: 150-degree screen to desktop PC
Jennifer Tichon1, Jasmine Banks
1Perception and Motor Systems Laboratory, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Australia. jtichon@uq.edu.au
Summary
Virtual reality exposure therapy (VRET) can be adapted for PCs, but presence may differ. While desktop PCs showed higher presence scores, users felt more present in curved screen environments, impacting VRET effectiveness.
Area of Science:
- Psychology
- Computer Science
- Human-Computer Interaction
Background:
- Virtual reality exposure therapy (VRET) faces usability challenges due to high costs and limited portability of immersive systems.
- Porting VRET applications to personal computer (PC) environments is necessary for wider adoption, but may affect user presence.
- Therapeutic success in VRET is strongly correlated with the patient's sense of presence and emotional response.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the impact of porting a VRET application for schizophrenia from a semi-immersive curved screen to a PC environment on user presence.
- To compare user presence and its underlying factors between the two distinct virtual reality platforms.
- To assess the feasibility of PC-based VRET while maintaining therapeutic efficacy.
Main Methods:
- A VRET application for schizophrenia was implemented on both a semi-immersive curved screen and a standard PC.
- User presence was measured using both subjective (questionnaires like PQ and IPQ) and objective (causal factors) methods.
- Participants experienced the VRET program in both environments, with their sense of presence recorded.
Main Results:
- The VRET program successfully induced a sense of presence in both the curved screen and PC environments.
- Participants reported feeling more present in the curved screen environment, despite the PC environment scoring higher on certain presence factors.
- Statistical significance was found for the Presence Questionnaire (PQ) but not the Igroup Presence Questionnaire (IPQ) in the comparison.
Conclusions:
- While PC-based VRET can achieve a sense of presence, the semi-immersive curved screen environment may offer a superior subjective experience for therapeutic applications.
- The findings highlight the importance of subjective user experience and emotional response in VRET, which are critical for patient engagement and treatment success.
- Further research should consider both objective measures and subjective reports to optimize VRET delivery across different platforms.
