Virtual reality-based smartphone application for animal exposure

Abstract

© 2017 IEEE. Exposure therapy is one method of behavioral therapy used for treating phobias, by applying virtual reality technology to generate the patient's fear environment that the patient can interact in the virtual environment without any danger. In this paper we propose a virtual reality-based smartphone application for user exposure to face their animal fear phobia. Using this application the user can practice facing the situation they fear. The user is able to use this application at anywhere, even in their own home. With an evaluation on 10 participants, the impact of user participation on realism, dreadfulness of dog, fierceness of dog, and hearing the dog sound was explored. The results have shown that user participation was found to influence the fierceness of dog and the dreadfulness of the dog.