2010

For a whole decade, after the numerous failures, the research on VR technology stopped and the interest around this type of innovation definitively disappeared.

In 2010, Facebook decided to dedicate a team belonging to the multi-disciplinary Facebook IQ research group, to the study of a tool that could bring advertising from television to the web and, in particular, to their social network.

So, two years later, they noticed the work of Palmer Luckey, a Californian student founder of Oculus VR, a company that had just received a loan of 2.4 million dollars thanks to a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter .
Luckey had created Oculus Rift a prototype of a VR headset with clearly defined characteristics:

• High resolution (2160x1200)
• Lightness (weight 470 grams)
• Possibility to be used for a long time without stressing the eyes

_{Oculus Rift DK2}
Image CC BY-SA 2.0 Source

The Facebook team, after some tests, was positively impressed by the qualities of the product and in March 25, 2014, Zuckerberg bought the Oculus VR, paying 2 billion dollars for the acquisition.

Here's how Mark Zuckerberg commented:

“This is just the start, after games, we're going to make Oculus a platform for many other experiences. Imagine enjoying a court side seat at a game, studying in a classroom of students and teachers all over the world or consulting with a doctor face-to-face - just by putting on goggles in your home.
This is really a new communication platform. By feeling truly present, you can share unbounded spaces and experiences with the people in your life. Imagine sharing not just moments with your friends online, but entire experiences and adventures."

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GIUSEPPE RIVA: CYBERTHERAPY AND CYBERPSYCHOLOGY

Returning to our conference, among the various guests who took part, Giuseppe Riva Ph.D. presented some of his studies concerning the application of virtual reality in the treatment of behavioral disorders and development of the nervous system disorders.

Giuseppe Riva Ph.D. at the University Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, President of the International Association of CyberPsychology, Training, and Rehabilitation and Head Researcher of the the Applied Technology for Neuro-Psychology Laboratory - ATN-P Lab of the Italian Auxologic Institute. He is also the Italian scientist with the most number of peer-reviewed publications in the field of virtual reality applied to health treatments.

He was the first to introduce these technologies in the field of psychology and rehabilitation, thanks to the work done at the ATN-P Lab.

Active since 1994, this structure is one of the most technologically advanced in the world and the only one in Italy to be equipped with CAVE (Cave Automatic Virtual Environment), a room with a simulated 3D environment, in which is practiced an immersive virtual reality experience, thanks to output devices such as helmets, headsets or goggles, and input devices such as gloves and joypads.

_{CAVE Electronic Visualization Laboratory, Illinois University, Chicago. 2001}
Image CC0 creative commons

The result is very effective, as the motion capture system is able to detect in real time, position and movements of the head and hands. Immersiveness is such as to bring the patient to integrate with the virtual environment until he can no longer distinguish it from the real one.

Thanks to this feature, the system can be used to simulate a specific environment, perhaps familiar, and to moderate physical and psychological disperceptions, or to generate a specific type of sensation.

Riva's studies have concerned and involved different areas, thanks to the multi-sectorial nature and to the great versatility of the developed techniques.

The basic concept is applicable in fact to different therapeutic areas:

• Burns treatment
• Control of stress situations
• Treatment of eating behavior disorders
• Treatment of learning development disorders
• Treatment of neuro-degenerative diseases
  
  

A beautiful experiment that makes understanding the validity of cybertherapy, can be found on YouTube, in a video that I will report in the sources, entitled Conversations between self and self as Freud, extrapolated from a study conducted by the team of University of Barcelona, Sofia Adelaide Osimo, Rodrigo Pizarro, Bernhard Spanlang and Mel Slater, published on Scientific Reports on 10 September 2015.

In the clip is shown a subject that sees his avatar reflected in a mirror, while in the room there is another avatar that represents Sigmund Freud. To the patient is asked to describe a state of mind or a personal problem and to give himself an answer or an advice for a possible resolution. Suddenly, the two avatars exchange positions and the patient becomes Freud. At that moment, feeling himself Freud, he began to give better advices than those he gave until he was himself. The simple fact of perceiving himself as Freud brought him to consider himself more competent and safer, making a significant cognitive detachment.

Other studies concern burned children who were feeling a lower sensation of pain, measured on the VAS scale, thanks to the support of augmented reality. The research was done on a sample of 9 patients, half of whom had been treated with a distractor (a common video game).
The other half, however, were tested with an augmented reality experience, before, during and after the dressing.
The result was clear: VR had proved to be a potent non-pharmacological analgesic, able to significantly lower the tolerance level of pain perception. There was also a concrete psychological advantage, in fact these children were more cooperative, less frightened and anxious.

Image CC by 2.0

In anorexic patients, was verified a decrease in the degree of body wrong percection thanks to a realistic transposition of their natural image.
To the subject, who wears a headset and visualizes himself as an avatar, is asked to touch specific parts of the body, and these movements are projected into the virtual image, until total identification is created.
Using a technique called BodyTracing, then, the patient is invited to draw on a sheet the contours of her body as she perceives it, before the session. And then she is invited to do it again after being submitted to the immersive experience.

In short, perhaps after the countless flops of history, has been found an area in which virtual reality can find its great explosion.

To give continuity to the discourse and deepen even more the studies about the theme, in one of the upcoming posts, I will talk about some latest technological innovations applied to behavioral disorders and phobias.

Meanwhile, I thank you for reading and see you soon.

Bibliography

• _{Riva, G., Bacchetta, M., Baruffi, M., & Molinari, E. (2001). Virtual Reality-Based Multidimensional Therapy for the Treatment of Body Image Disturbances in Obesity: A Controlled Study, CyberPsychology & Behavior, 4(4), 511-526.}

• _{Riva, G., Bacchetta, M., Baruffi, M., Rinaldi, S., & Molinari, E. (1999). Virtual reality based experiential cognitive treatment of anorexia nervosa, Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 30(3), 221-230.}

• _{Vincelli, F., & Riva, G. (2007), La Realtà Virtuale come supporto alla psicoterapia cognitivo-comportamentale, in Vincelli, F., Riva, G., & Molinari, E. (Eds.). La realtà virtuale in psicologia clinica. Nuovi percorsi di intervento nel disturbo di panico con agorafobia, pp. 67-92. Milano: McGraw-Hill.}

• _{Hoffman H. G., Doctor J. N., Patterson D. R., Carrougher G. J., Furness T. A., (2000) Virtual reality as an adjunctive pain control during burn wound care in adolescent patients. Pain. 85(1-2):305-9.}

WEB Sources

• https://www.tomshw.it/storia-realta-virtuale-75901
• http://neuropsicotech.com/atn-p-lab/
• http://neuropsicotech.com/la-nuova-frontiera-della-riabilitazione-cave-automatic-virtual-environment-cave/
• Conversations between self and self as Freud
• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26354311)
• http://www.fnopi.it/ecm/rivista-linfermiere/rivista-linfermiere-page-28-articolo-326.htm
• Body swapping protocol
  
  

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