Feasibility of hemispatial neglect rehabilitation with virtual reality-based visual exploration therapy among patients with stroke: randomised controlled trial.

Background: Hemispatial neglect (HSN) was diagnosed using a virtual reality-based test (FOPR test) that explores the field of perception (FOP) and field of regard (FOR). Here, we developed virtual reality-visual exploration therapy (VR-VET) combining elements from the FOPR test and visual exploration therapy (VET) and examined its efficacy for HSN rehabilitation following stroke.

Methods: Eleven participants were randomly assigned to different groups, training with VR-VET first then waiting without VR-VET training (TW), or vice versa (WT).

Impact of Personalized Avatars and Motion Synchrony on Embodiment and Users' Subjective Experience: Empirical Study.

Background: Embodiment through a virtual avatar is a key element for people to feel that they are in the virtual world.

Objective: This study aimed to elucidate the interaction between 2 methods of eliciting embodiment through a virtual avatar: motion synchronization and appearance similarity between a human and avatar, to understand embodiment (agency, body ownership, and self-location) and subjective experience (presence, simulator sickness, and emotion) in virtual reality.

Methods: Using a full-body motion capture system, 24 participants experienced their virtual avatars with a 3D-scanned face and size-matched body from a first-person perspective.

FOPR test: a virtual reality-based technique to assess field of perception and field of regard in hemispatial neglect.

Background: We previously proposed a novel virtual reality-based method to assess human field of perception (FOP) and field of regard (FOR), termed the FOPR test. This study assessed the diagnostic validity of the FOPR test for hemispatial neglect (HSN).

Methods: We included 19 stroke patients with a lesion in the right hemisphere and with HSN (HSN+SS), 22 stroke patients with a lesion in the right hemisphere and without HSN (HSN-SS), and 22 healthy controls aged 19-65 years.

Controlling the Sense of Embodiment for Virtual Avatar Applications: Methods and Empirical Study.

Background: The sense of embodiment (SoE) is the feeling of one's own body, and research on the SoE extends from the rubber hand illusion to the full-body ownership illusion with a virtual avatar.

Objective: The key to utilizing a virtual avatar is understanding and controlling the SoE, and it can be extended to several medical applications. In this study, we aimed to clarify these aspects by considering the following three subcomponents of SoE: sense of agency, ownership, and self-location.

Measuring recognition of body changes over time: A human-computer interaction tool using dynamic morphing and body ownership illusion.

Measuring body image is crucial at both personal and social levels. Previous studies have attempted to quantitatively measure body image but methods for measuring body change recognition over time have not yet been established. The present study proposes a novel human-computer interaction technique using dynamic morphing and body ownership illusion, and we conducted a user study to investigate how body ownership illusion and gender would affect to body change recognition.

Feasibility of a Virtual Reality Program in Managing Test Anxiety: A Pilot Study.

Test anxiety has been a growing problem in school-aged children, especially for students in East-Asian countries where the pressure for academic achievement is high. These students are more vulnerable to academic stress, which could further lead to anxiety disorders. For this reason, this study examined the feasibility of virtual reality (VR) test anxiety program in managing anxiety in students.

Impact of Body Size Match to an Avatar on the Body Ownership Illusion and User's Subjective Experience.

The current study sought to investigate the effects of matching body movement and body size between an avatar and a participant on the body ownership illusion (BOI), the body size illusion, the sense of presence, simulator sickness, and emotional responses within an immersive virtual reality (IVR). Forty participants experienced their life-sized virtual avatars from a first-person perspective using a full-body motion-capture system. The experiment used a 2 (Motion: Synchrony and Asynchrony) × 2 (Size: Matched and Unmatched) within-subject design.

Joint Attention Virtual Classroom: A Preliminary Study.

Objective: Previous studies have suggested that a virtual classroom is immersive and ecologically valid neuropsychological assessment, but those studies have limited components for social attentions. Therefore, the objective in the current study is the development of a joint attention virtual reality (JA-VR) classroom to incorporate social attentions between a participant and a virtual avatar teacher.

Methods: Fifty-eight participants were recruited for current study (25 for pilot and 33 for main studies; 32.

Development of Virtual Reality Continuous Performance Test Utilizing Social Cues for Children and Adolescents with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder.

Virtual reality (VR) neuropsychological assessments have the potential for the ecological measurement of attention. We analyzed the newly developed VR continuous performance test (VR-CPT) for Korean children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and typically developing children (TDC). To identify specific features of a virtual environment that influence the attention performance of children, we investigated whether the presence of a virtual teacher and social cues in the VR environment affects their attention performance.

Spatial Learning and Memory Using a Radial Arm Maze with a Head-Mounted Display.

Objective: A radial arm maze (RAM) is an essential tool for assessing spatial learning and memory. Although this tool is widely used to study deficits in spatial memory in animal models, it has several restrictions that prevent its adaptation to human research and training. Therefore, we developed a head-mounted-display RAM (HMD-RAM) program for humans and verified its validity by comparing it to the results obtained by previous RAM studies.

Performance-Based Animation Using Constraints for Virtual Object Manipulation.

Optical motion-capture systems can be used to animate characters in real time based on human demonstrations. However, most approaches do not consider the detailed finger movements necessary for object manipulation. The proposed online motion-capture framework encourages natural motions by automatically guiding the avatar's motion toward the desired behavior based on a set of captured reference motions for the same behavior.

Human field of regard, field of view, and attention bias.

Background And Objective: Human field of regard (FOR) is an important concept that should be considered along with field of view (FOV) for people with/without handicaps, but previous studies have neglected this aspect of human perception. In the current study, we suggest and test a new virtual reality (VR) software with which to evaluate individual's detection abilities in the human FOR.

Methods: We conducted measurements of human FOV, FOR, and FOR with visual cue (FOR-cue), and we evaluated healthy adults' responses in a first experiment.

Brief Report: Joint Attention and Information Processing in Children with Higher Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorders.

Theory suggests that information processing during joint attention may be atypical in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). This hypothesis was tested in a study of school-aged children with higher functioning ASD and groups of children with symptoms of ADHD or typical development. The results indicated that the control groups displayed significantly better recognition memory for pictures studied in an initiating joint attention (IJA) rather than responding to joint attention (RJA) condition.

Effects of virtual environment platforms on emotional responses.

The goal of the current study was to investigate the effects of different virtual environment (VE) technologies (i.e., desktop, head mounted display, or fully immersive platforms) on emotional arousal and task performance.

A Virtual Joy-Stick Study of Emotional Responses and Social Motivation in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

A new virtual reality task was employed which uses preference for interpersonal distance to social stimuli to examine social motivation and emotion perception in children with Autism Spectrum Disorders. Nineteen high function children with higher functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder (HFASD) and 23 age, gender, and IQ matched children with typical development (TD) used a joy stick to position themselves closer or further from virtual avatars while attempting to identify six emotions expressed by the avatars, happiness, fear, anger, disgust, sadness, and surprise that were expressed at different levels of intensity. The results indicated that children with HFASD displayed significantly less approach behavior to the positive happy expression than did children with TD, who displayed increases in approach behavior to higher intensities of happy expressions.

Social attention in a virtual public speaking task in higher functioning children with autism.

Impairments in social attention play a major role in autism, but little is known about their role in development after preschool. In this study, a public speaking task was used to study social attention, its moderators, and its association with classroom learning in elementary and secondary students with higher functioning autism spectrum disorder (HFASD). Thirty-seven students with HFASD and 54 age- and intelligence quotient (IQ)-matched peers without symptoms of ASD were assessed in a virtual classroom public speaking paradigm.

Development and validation of a computer-based measure of symmetry and arranging behavior in obsessive-compulsive disorder: a preliminary study.

Objective: While compulsive ordering and arranging, and a preoccupation with symmetry are common presentations of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), little attention has been given to these types of symptoms in the assessment of patients with OCD. The goal of the present study was to develop and evaluate psychometric properties for the objective and quantitative measurement of compulsive symptoms related to symmetry and arranging.

Methods: Thirty-five normal volunteers performed computer-simulated environment tasks under four different conditions with or without a target and distraction.

Joint attention, social-cognition, and recognition memory in adults.

The early emerging capacity for Joint Attention (JA), or socially coordinated visual attention, is thought to be integral to the development of social-cognition in childhood. Recent studies have also begun to suggest that JA affects adult cognition as well, but methodological limitations hamper research on this topic. To address this issue we developed a novel virtual reality paradigm that integrates eye-tracking and virtual avatar technology to measure two types of JA in adults, Initiating Joint Attention (IJA) and Responding to Joint Attention (RJA).

Comparison of checking behavior in adults with or without checking symptom of obsessive-compulsive disorder using a novel computer-based measure.

Easy to administer behavioral measures of checking are needed to improve the assessment of this hallmark feature of OCD. We recently developed a new computer-based behavioral assessment of OCD in a previous study. As a follow-up experiment for this method, the goal of this study was to examine whether the new computer-based behavioral assessment would be capable of differentiating behaviors in adults with OCD characterized by checking behavior from those without checking behavior.

Speed and accuracy of facial expression classification in avoidant personality disorder: a preliminary study.

The aim of this preliminary study was to examine whether individuals with avoidant personality disorder (APD) could be characterized by deficits in the classification of dynamically presented facial emotional expressions. Using a community sample of adults with APD (n = 17) and non-APD controls (n = 16), speed and accuracy of facial emotional expression recognition was investigated in a task that morphs facial expressions from neutral to prototypical expressions (Multi-Morph Facial Affect Recognition Task; Blair, Colledge, Murray, & Mitchell, 2001). Results indicated that individuals with APD were significantly more likely than controls to make errors when classifying fully expressed fear.

Provoked arrangement symptoms in obsessive-compulsive disorder using a virtual environment: A preliminary report.

The current study aims to explore the effectiveness of virtual environment (VE) in producing anxiety variations to arrangement in order to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder. Twenty-four participants completed and performed the virtual arrangement tasks three times with three-day intervals. The results showed that the levels of participants' anxiety decreased significantly from the first to the last day, but the levels of decrement were different depending on the type of tasks: the time limit task was most effective among the three tasks in evoking arrangement anxiety.

Development of a computer based symmetry arrangement symptoms measures in obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Background: Epidemiological studies indicated that compulsive ordering and arranging, and a preoccupation with symmetry are common presentations of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

Objective: The goal of the current study was to develop and obtain preliminary psychometric data for the objective and quantitative measurement of symmetry and arrangement symptoms in OCD.

Method: Twenty-eight normal volunteers were administered computer based assessment tasks with 4 different conditions with or without target and distraction.

Virtual reality for obsessive-compulsive disorder: past and the future.

The use of computers, especially for virtual reality (VR), to understand, assess, and treat various mental health problems has been developed for the last decade, including application for phobia, post-traumatic stress disorder, attention deficits, and schizophrenia. However, the number of VR tools addressing obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is still lacking due to the heterogeneous symptoms of OCD and poor understanding of the relationship between VR and OCD. This article reviews the empirical literatures for VR tools in the future, which involve applications for both clinical work and experimental research in this area, including examining symptoms using VR according to OCD patients' individual symptoms, extending OCD research in the VR setting to also study behavioral and physiological correlations of the symptoms, and expanding the use of VR for OCD to cognitive-behavioral intervention.

Development of a computer-based behavioral assessment of checking behavior in obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Objective: The goal of the current study was to develop and obtain preliminary psychometric data for a computer-based behavioral measure of compulsive checking behavior in a sample of patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

Method: We examined performance on a novel behavioral measure in 30 patients with OCD and 27 matched healthy controls. In the computerized assessment, participants navigated through two virtual environments (home and office) using a joystick and head-mounted display.