Results Pilot Study

Overview

Some students of the Technical University of Delft created a pilot in cooperation with the department of Clinical Psychology of the University of Amsterdam.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of low-budget virtual reality exposure versus exposure in vivo in a within group design in ten individuals suffering from acrophobia. Patients were treated with two sessions of VRE first. The next two sessions patients were treated with exposure in vivo. VRE was found to be at least as effective as exposure in vivo on anxiety and avoidance measured with the Acrophobia Questionnaire and even more effective on the Attitude Towards Heights Questionnaire (ATHQ).

Picture of the virtual environment used for treatment

This study shows that virtual reality exposure can be effective with relatively cheap hardware and software on stand-alone computers currently on the market. Further studies are recommended, in which virtual reality exposure is compared with in vivo exposure in a between group design, thus enabling to investigate the long-term effects of VRE.

On our publications page you can find two papers on this experiment:

• Virtual Reality Treatment in Acrophobia: A Comparison with Exposure in Vivo

P.M.G.Emmelkamp, M.Bruynzeel, L.Drost, C.A.P.G.van der Mast Accepted for Cyberpsychology and Behavior

• Treatment of Acrophobia in VR: a Pilot Study

M.J.Schuemie, M.Bruynzeel, L.Drost, M.Brinckman, G.de Haan, P.M.G.Emmelkamp, C.A.P.G.van der Mast in F. Broeckx and L. Pauwels (Eds.) Conference Proceedings Euromedia 2000, May 8-10, 2000 Antwerp Belgium, pp. 271-275.