Towards reactive augmented reality exposure treatment

Various ways for delivering exposure treatment to phobic people have been developed and investigated. These range from traditional live exposure to mixed reality exposure to fully virtual exposure approaches, each with specific advantages and disadvantages in delivering exposure of phobia inducing stimuli. In previous research we have argued for specific advantages in creating interactive augmented reality based exposure treatment. We have extended this approach by integrating psycho-physiology-based sensor data to add more interactivity, or reactivity in the system. By integrating galvanic skin response data as a real-time measurement of the user’s arousal, the stimulus (a virtual spider) can automatically ‘react’ to the user’s state. Such a system offers interesting opportunities for creating new kinds of interactive and ecologically valid exposure treatment systems that can adapt to the client’s treatment needs without the need for external intervention. This paper describes our proposed approach, an initial system that we have developed and a pilot study to test the feasibility of this technology.